Oslo Opera House tickets 31 May 2025 - Kylián Festival: Day after Yesterday | GoComGo.com

Kylián Festival: Day after Yesterday

Oslo Opera House, Main Stage, Oslo, Norway
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6 PM
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US$ 17

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info
Type: Modern Ballet
City: Oslo, Norway
Starts at: 18:00
Intervals: 2
Duration: 2h 30min

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Cast
Performers
Ballet company: Norwegian National Ballet
Chorus: Norwegian National Opera Chorus
Orchestra: Norwegian National Opera Orchestra
Creators
Composer: Igor Stravinsky
Composer: Anton Webern
Composer: Benjamin Britten
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Choreographer: Jiří Kylián
Overview

A celebration of Jiří Kylián’s artistry. The Norwegian National Ballet is proud to present the Kylián Festival! In Day after Yesterday, look back and enjoy a long-awaited reunion with the Kylián classics Forgotten Land, No More Play, Petite Mort and Symphony of Psalms.

Four timeless dance works danced to a full orchestra 
Modern ballet without a plot but packed with poetry, ingenuity and musicality: Jiří Kylián has breathed new life into ballet as an art form. We are now celebrating his work with two different performances that demonstrate the amazing range of his artistry. Day after Yesterday features four classics from his early career, all performed with a full orchestra, and one of them also with a chorus. 

Oslo Opera House full of Kylián 
Jiří Kylián not only creates dance works, but in recent years has also worked with photography and video, sculptures and installations.  

In May and June 2025, the theatre will be celebrating this unique artist with very own Kylián Festival: Wings of Time in the Oslo Opera House! It is also a tribute to the close partnership between him and the Norwegian National Ballet that has spanned over 30 years. 

The entire Oslo Opera House will be filled with Kylián’s art: We are exhibiting a number of his installations and photographs, in addition to showing films – and on the Main Stage, the National Ballet will be dancing seven of his ballets divided into two programmes. 

The Kylián Festival is the largest showcase to date of his art in Norway, and with Jiří Kylián himself as curator and on hand to set the stage for a rare event.

Forgotten Land (1981) explores memories, events and people who have been lost or forgotten over time to the music of Benjamin Britten. The Edvard Munch painting The Dance of Life, which depicts a woman in three stages of life, was a great inspiration for Kylián when creating this work.

In comparison to Benjamin Britten, Jiří Kylián sees Sinfonia da Requiem as a work of a more personal than political character. It is always people who determine the political scene; it is likewise people and nature who always turn the wheel of evolution a little further.

No More Play (1988) is also inspired by art, more specifically a small sculpture by Alberto Giacometti: a slightly deformed board game with two wooden pieces that resemble human figures. “But as you begin to play this mysterious game, you start to learn its laws – only sometimes too late” said Kylián about the work. 

In Petite Mort (1991), we see six women and six men alternating between duets and group sequences to music from two of Mozart’s most popular piano concertos. Petite mort is French for ‘little death’ and is usually used as a euphemism for an orgasm. According to the choreographer himself, “The eternal themes of everything I have done are about being born, dying and what we do in between.”

For his choreographic performance Petite Mort, Jiri Kilian, who is also called the “Picasso dance”, used two slow fragments from two of Mozart’s most famous concerts for piano. He deliberately cut out fast movements, leaving only slow music, helpless, like mutilated bodies, appearing to listeners and spectators. According to the choreographer himself, this is against all rules, but, nevertheless, it was decided to do just that. After all, the world around us is far from ideal and the rules are constantly violated. Jiri Kilian also decided to keep up with this general trend.

Indeed, since Mozart created his divine music, and to this day, many wars have occurred in the world, and rivers of blood have spilled under the “Bridge of Time”. In order to demonstrate male potency and a thirst for power (possession), swords were symbolically involved in the composition.

So, throughout our entire life, “Death” always accompanies us, sometimes it is “small” and sometimes “large”, but it is it that is our faithful companion from dawn to dusk of our life.

Last but not least: Symphony of Psalms (1978) set to Stravinsky’s choral symphony of the same name and, according to Kylián himself, brings together dance and the divine. The Opera Orchestra is performing in the pit together with the Opera Chorus.

History

Drawing from the abundance of his dancing imagination, JiříKylián has kept audiences and experts in suspense with his choreographies for decades. One of his most performed works is Petite Mort. This work is based on the extremely popular Adagio movements from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concertos Nos. 21 and 23. The beguiling intensity of these slow musical movements forms the counterpoint to an energetic display of male and female attributes that allude elegantly and ambiguously to the sexual ritual of aggression, energy and vulnerability, to the "little death".

Symphony of Psalms (1978) is a work for 16 dancers that, set to Igor Stravinsky’s choral symphony of the same name, “brings together dance and the divine.” 

Venue Info

Oslo Opera House - Oslo
Location   Kirsten Flagstads Plass 1

The Oslo Opera House is the home of The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway. The building is situated in the Bjørvika neighbourhood of central Oslo, at the head of the Oslofjord. It is operated by Statsbygg, the government agency which manages property for the Norwegian government. The structure contains 1,100 rooms in a total area of 38,500 m2 (414,000 sq ft). The main auditorium seats 1,364 and two other performance spaces can seat 200 and 400. The main stage is 16 m (52 ft) wide and 40 m (130 ft) deep. The angled exterior surfaces of the building are covered with marble from Carrara, Italy and white granite and make it appear to rise from the water. It is the largest cultural building constructed in Norway since Nidarosdomen was completed circa 1300.

In 1999, after a long national debate, the Norwegian legislature decided to construct a new opera house in the city. A design competition was held and, of the 350 entries received, the judges chose that of Snøhetta. Construction started in 2003 and was completed in 2007, ahead of schedule and 300 million NOK (~US$52 million) under its budget of 4.4 billion NOK (~US$760 million). The gala opening on 12 April 2008 was attended by His Majesty King Harald, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and President Tarja Halonen of Finland and other leaders. During the first year of operation, 1.3 million people passed through the building's doors.

The Opera House won the culture award at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona in October 2008 and the 2009 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture.

The roof of the building angles to ground level, creating a large plaza that invites pedestrians to walk up and enjoy the panoramic views of Oslo. While much of the building is covered in white granite and La Facciata, a white Italian carrara marble, the stage tower is clad in white aluminium, in a design by Løvaas & Wagle that evokes old weaving patterns.

The lobby is surrounded by 15 m (49 ft) tall windows with minimal framing and special glass that allows maximum views of the water. The roof is supported by thin angled columns also designed not to interfere with views.

Interior surfaces are covered in oak to bring warmth to spaces in contrast to the coolness of the white exterior. The main auditorium is a horseshoe shape and illuminated by an oval chandelier containing 5,800 handmade crystals. Seats include monitors for the electronic libretto system, allowing audiences to follow opera libretti in Norwegian and English in addition to the original language.

Several art projects were commissioned for the interior and exterior of the Opera House. The most notable is She Lies, a sculpture constructed of stainless steel and glass panels by Monica Bonvicini. It is permanently installed on a concrete platform in the fjord adjacent to Opera House and floats on the water moving in response to tides and wind to create an ever-changing face to viewers. The work was unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Sonja on 11 May 2010.

A perforated wall panel which covers roof supports in the lobby was designed by Olafur Eliasson. It features hexagonal opening and is illuminated from below and behind to create the illusion of melting ice. Other artists involved in the construction include Kristian Blystad, Jorunn Sannes and Kalle Grude, who designed the shape of the pavers on the forecourt and roof; Bodil Furu and Trine Lise Nedreaas, who created a film and video project; Marte Aas, Talleiv Taro Manum, Tom Sandberg, Gerd Tinglum and Nina Witoszek Fitzpatrick, who created the art book Site Seeing; and Linus Elmes and Ludvig Löfgren, who created the foundation stone.

The main stage curtain is the work of Pae White who designed it to look like crumpled aluminum foil. White scanned a crumpled piece of foil into a computer which translated the information to a loom that wove the curtain from wool, cotton and polyester to create a three-dimensional effect. The curtain was manufactured by the German-based theatrical equipment company Gerriets GmbH. The finished curtain measures 74 ft (23 m) wide and 36 ft (11 m) and weighs 1,100 lb (500 kg).

Important Info
Type: Modern Ballet
City: Oslo, Norway
Starts at: 18:00
Intervals: 2
Duration: 2h 30min
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