Ballet performance at Operahuset (09.04.)

Here's the article about the "bit of culture" I promised you in my Bergen trip blog post. And hey, not even delayed by a full week! (I'm not gonna repeat my school issues, you find them in the Bergen article. Plus, I spent most of the Saturday in the library - until they kicked me out due to shit weekend opening hours that are not in any way adapted to the fact that exam time basically has already started.)

So I only came back from Bergen in the afternoon and obviously hadn't been productive (in the academic sense) the whole weekend. Still, I abandoned the plan to be productive on Monday - or at least relax and catch some sleep before the beginning of a block seminar week - when I got the opportunity to go to a ballet performance at Operahuset.

I mean, I had obviously been to the building before, and that more than once - remember my first city explorations, the bus tour BI paid for and my slippery sunset experience at the rooftop? However, going to an actual performance at the Opera House had still been on my to do list.

Going to an opera performance was not really an option: opera in Norwegian? Opera in Italian with Norwegian subtitles? Not sure what would have been worse. Therefore, going to the ballet was kind of our only option. And that's how I ended up experiencing the very first live ballet performance of my life in Oslo! :D

If you're a student, you can get tickets in the lowest price category (standing or possibly limited view) for 100 NOK. That's more or less the same price as getting last minute tickets for the opera in Stuttgart, so a really good deal for Oslo!

And the view from the standing balcony was actually really good:

Obviously, it was not permitted to take photos during the performance. If you're interested: we went to "An evening with Kylián, Forsythe and Øyen". The evening consisted, as you might be able to tell, of three pieces, created by Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe and Alan Lucien Øyen, respectively. If you now picture something like Swan Lake in your mind: nope, that was not it. We're talking about modern ballet - which I really liked, especially the middle part by Forsythe!

If you read the description I linked in which it says "3 hours 10 minutes": it took even longer because at the end of the first part, some part of the stage construction crashed and they had to drop the curtain a bit earlier than planned. Nobody was hurt, but it took forever to bring everything back in order. That gave us the time to enjoy our break with a free drink. (The opera is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, so all guests got a voucher for a drink at the beginning and a cotton bag at the end.)

We also managed to move to the only seats that had remained empty during the first part:

Almost sold out, I'd say.

Unfortunately, the angle for actually seeing the stage was worse there, so I went back to the standing balcony for the last part. Because if I go to a ballet performance, I prefer to be able to see everything that's going on on stage to sitting comfortably. :P

Anyway, overall, it was a really good experience! :)