Rhodri and I joined the Welsh Society of Oslo for an evening of opera at the
Oscarborg Fortress. First we took a ferry from Aker Brygge (downtown Oslo) and it was a 1.5 hrs ride down the Oslofjord to this island near Drobak. Then we had about an hour to explore the island and socialize/ eat dinner before sitting down to watch La Boheme. Here is an aerial photo I downloaded showing the fortress.
During the German invasion of Norway, the fortress was manned by the Norwegian military and they torpedoed (and sunk) a German ship which is still on the seafloor of the fjord today. Here are some picnickers in front of one of the many cannons.
Here is Rhodri and some other Welsh Society members inside the fortress waiting for the show to start.
The
La Boheme stage. We were just next to the orchestra (to the left from this photo) and boy were they impressive. The performance was good, although there were times when the orchestra drowned out the singing voices, especially the mens'. The lady singers playing Mimi and Musetta were especially great, though.
But the highlight had to be the perfect summer evening weather that we had combined with the overall thrill of the special outing! The forecast was for heavy rain, and by Friday morning the forecast had improved to rain showers, but in the end we saw nothing but blue sky and enough wispy clouds to reflect the sunset colors. We even saw the stars come out! Definitely a novelty at the end of a Scandinavian summer. The show ended at 10pm, everyone got back on the ferry, and about 2 hours later (against the tide, I guess) we were back in Oslo. So we got home around 1am and the report was that everyone went to bed early with no fuss. Great! An all around success! Big thanks to Auntie Nia for making it possible :-)
During the German invasion of Norway, the fortress was manned by the Norwegian military and they torpedoed (and sunk) a German ship which is still on the seafloor of the fjord today. Here are some picnickers in front of one of the many cannons.
Here is Rhodri and some other Welsh Society members inside the fortress waiting for the show to start.
The La Boheme stage. We were just next to the orchestra (to the left from this photo) and boy were they impressive. The performance was good, although there were times when the orchestra drowned out the singing voices, especially the mens'. The lady singers playing Mimi and Musetta were especially great, though.
But the highlight had to be the perfect summer evening weather that we had combined with the overall thrill of the special outing! The forecast was for heavy rain, and by Friday morning the forecast had improved to rain showers, but in the end we saw nothing but blue sky and enough wispy clouds to reflect the sunset colors. We even saw the stars come out! Definitely a novelty at the end of a Scandinavian summer. The show ended at 10pm, everyone got back on the ferry, and about 2 hours later (against the tide, I guess) we were back in Oslo. So we got home around 1am and the report was that everyone went to bed early with no fuss. Great! An all around success! Big thanks to Auntie Nia for making it possible :-)
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