Culturally Gothenburger, finally.


The first glimpse of Gothenburg I ever caught was in a promotional video, which I happened to see during my application process way back in early 2013. And the city simply floored me then, I fell in love as I was landing, and I’m still happily (whispers) away from my home – Bangalore. This could be because I have been a horrible geography student, who did not quite know any natural features to look forward to in the city, and the only thing that stuck to my head during my European history lessons was Renaissance! Further, the  movies of Luis Buñuel  and the Swedish genius film maker Ingmar Bergman I had watched, only strengthened my stereotyping of Europe, to be some sort of a grand canvas for creative art and human expression.

When I arrived in Gothenburg – No, I was not a bit disappointed. Gothenburg still matches my mental image of a culturally rich, European city image. Now, after 1.5 years here and having experienced the culture in terms of people, architecture, music performances, theatre and art galleries, one lacuna that had remained and had not completed my experience as a Gothenburger was of not having savoured an opera performance, with a live orchestra playing along. I have seen the Gothenburg symphony orchestra play, but it was in an open park and on a rainy day. I won’t even start complaining about the acoustics.

That's a portion of the Opera house. No, I wasn't trying to be artistic. It was the only stock photo I had of the opera house :)

That’s a portion of the Opera house. No, I wasn’t trying to be artistic. It was the only stock photo I had of the opera house 🙂

This being the state, a colleague in my thesis room and I just randomly were talking of operas, and decided to check what the Gothenburg Opera House had in store for us. We have now seen an opera, and a two part musical, already, and are preparing for the third show later this week. Meaning we found a jolly good deal. The Opera house, considerately offers student packages with heavy discount. It varies from season to season, and we are easily paying less than half the actual prices of the tickets as part of this package. Even if not the package, there is normally youth and student discount of 25% on most shows. If you are looking for many, but semi-bourgeoisie experience at the Opera house, opt for the student package. For popular shows, the seating is not the best, but the ambience and the performance usually compensate. On the other hand, if you are looking for the wholesome experience, that I attribute as the full bourgeoisie experience, then you can opt to purchase the normal tickets (with student discount), for a show you would REALLY want to watch, and it will be worth every krona you pay!

I will not talk about the shows themselves here in detail. Maybe will write a deeper post about it on my personal blog. But to give you an overview here’s a quote from the art director of the Gothenburg Opera Dance company, where she, Adolphe Binder, encapsulates the experience they want to immerse their audiences in: ”We must examine our areas of discomfort (in the performances). Through this our audiences become ‘partners in crime’, rather than simply consumers”.

Experiencing live music is still one of those joys that makes the analog world real, amidst the digital chaos we live in. Don’t miss a chance to live it.