Subtitles in the theater

Hulda in Lillehammer, April 2025 · Athens, July 2025 · Ringsakeroperaen, November 2025

I went to see Hulda at the premiere in Lillehammer. It's pretty unique — maybe the first time this opera has been put on at full length with acting (not just as a concert). And it was a totally fantastic experience. There's a very full review from GD, and from Aftenposten. Both overwhelmingly positive. I mostly agree.

However, there was one factor that really struck me, and that wasn't mentioned by any of the reviewers. I've only seen opera in the theater a couple of times, and quite a lot on streaming. And always subtitled. I speak several opera languages, but I'm completely dependent on having it subtitled in Italian or French etc to be able to follow along.

This opera was originally written in French, and I expected it to be performed in French (hadn't exactly checked any further), but it turns out that it has been thoroughly reworked and translated into Norwegian. That's great of course, but maybe that's why they didn't feel any need for subtitles. The problem is that even with your mother tongue at the opera it can be very hard to follow an unfamiliar text (this isn't like The Barber of Seville, songs you've often heard on the radio before)... Whether it's female sopranos going up into falsetto, or baritones getting drowned out by an orchestra...

The strange thing was that now and then it was subtitled for a couple of minutes! It was so incredibly relaxing, I felt I could really enjoy the music and the acting instead of sitting there straining my ears to try to pick up the words... But then it disappeared. First I thought it was a technical error. But afterwards I heard from the organizers that this was an artistic choice. Very strange I thought — and a lot of people around me were talking about how they couldn't follow the text.

Thought it was a shame, it ruined quite a lot, and it's basically easy to fix — when everything else works so well.

But anyway I'm very glad for the experience! There's no recording of this performance out, don't know if there will be, but I've dug out the French libretto and I'm sitting here listening to recordings that are on Apple Music and probably Spotify... It's fantastic music! (It's possible that César Franck got interested in Norwegian literature through Grieg. Grieg at least had a very high regard for César Franck.)

Ringsaker, half a year later

I was lucky enough to get to go to the rehearsals for Madama Butterfly at Ringsakeroperaen, and what an experience! It's an incredible journey, and even though you know how it ends, you're on the edge of your seat the whole way. With an incredibly beautiful set, great performances by the actors and fantastic music it all works so well together. And sometimes it all comes together and reaches such heights that you really get shivers down your spine.

It's all in Norwegian, and there are screens with subtitles very clearly visible from all the seats (I really appreciate that), the story is easy to understand, and the music is, as I said, totally incredible. You don't walk out of that theater untouched.

Also incredibly impressed by Ringsakeroperaen, and how they manage to combine some of Norway's best performers, both vocal soloists and musicians, with a huge team of volunteers and local amateurs who work hard and give it everything, but probably get an incredible amount out of it.

Athens

I'm in Athens, and getting to see lots of theater and performances — they have several big festivals through the summer, for example the Epidaurus festival, which includes theater in fantastic places like amphitheaters that are several thousand years old, but also lots of performances in an industrial area that reminds me a lot of Berlin.

But what has struck me is that all the performances are subtitled in English and Greek (with screens placed on the side, etc) and that there are lots of tourists who go and really, really appreciate it.

It made me think a bit about tourists who come to Oslo for example and are interested in Ibsen or maybe Jon Fosse... I assume the cultural scene is pretty dead in Oslo in the summer, but anyway all of this is in Norwegian, even when it's actually on offer. The only place we offer subtitles is (as far as I know) at the opera, but there it's a very long time between each time a Norwegian opera is offered... So the audience gets the chance to see exactly the same operas they can see anywhere in the world (Rossini etc). That's great, and lots of people take advantage of it because of the nice building etc, but it's not enough!

You could do a lot more with the legacy of Ibsen for tourists too. I watch a lot of recordings from the National Theatre and The Globe in England — and there you have a great mix of Shakespeare plays put on more or less "traditionally", with period costumes etc — and modern takes. I miss more of the first kind in Norway.