Defenders of the highly varied program arranged to mark the Opera's opening will say it's an appropriately folkesy reflection of the Norwegian people. The Opera House, built with taxpayers' money, is supposed to be a "people's Opera" that won't be too stuffy or formal.
Some critics, though, are appalled at how the official opening on April 12th will be celebrated. Author Niels Geelmuyden, writing in a commentary in newspaper Aftenposten this week, is among them.
Geelmuyden notes that many Norwegians view the opening of the new Opera House as the biggest cultural event in the country since the dedication of the Nidaros Cathedral in the Middle Ages. Norway's opera lovers waited 50 years for the authorities to come up with the roughly NOK 4 billion (USD 800 million) needed to build it.
They perhaps could have expected, then, that the country's Minister of Culture would step in to prevent the opening gala from turning into a mix of trailer park entertainment and a rowdy night on the party boats to Denmark.
But noooooo. Culture Minister Trond Giske actually contacted another far-from-high-brow rock band (called DDE) from his home district of Trøndelag to play at the opening. In addition to the Ole Ivars dance band that sings about getting fat.
"In Norway, it seems, "it's not possible to set your sights low enough," Geelmuyden wrote.
He thinks this reflects a basic Norwegian trait that no one and nothing should be too fancy, and that Norway's origins as a nation of farmers keep coming back to haunt it. A professor at the University of Oslo who emigrated from Poland, Nina Witoszek, has noted that back home in Krakow, people aspired to higher classes. In Norway, she immediately felt aspirations were the opposite. In Norway, Geelmuyden wrote, everyone tries to resemble farmers and the proletariat.
There was one musical group, though, that lost its bid to perform, curiously a group of accordion players known for their rural folk music. They recently mounted a noisy protest outside the Opera building.
It should be noted that the opening gala will be attended by Norway's royal family, some other Scandinavian royals and some top politicians. That may provide an air of dignity. Then again, maybe not.
