The Royal Opera House, Stockholm
October 6, 2018

Any opera that features gender reassignment surgery live on stage while the chorus chants a ‘phallocentric universe’ is bound to grab one’s attention, and indeed the Royal Swedish Opera’s world premiere of Jonas S Bohlin’s new opera Tristessa was dramatically, visually and musically compelling.

Joel Annmo as Eve and John Erik Eleby as Zero in Tristessa. Photograph © Sören Vilks

Bohlin’s opera is based on The Passion of New Eve, the ground-breaking 1977 novel of English writer Angela Carter. Set in a dystopian United States and exploring issues of gender and identity, the grand scale and sheer audacity of Carter’s literary imagination is perfectly suited to the medium of opera. In spite of the seriousness of the subject matter, Carter and Bohlin create a work that is at times humorous and satirical, but also thought-provoking and genuinely shocking. No one in the opening night audience, which ranged from traditional opera-going types to younger thrill seekers can have left unaffected by some of the visual and musical elements of the evening. Although the novel is now more than 30 years old, it is a shrewd choice of...