My happy place is the island of Ingarö, which forms part of Stockholm’s skerry archipelago, an area composed of almost 30,000 rocky isles and islets clustered around that area of the Baltic coast. Ingarö is only about 15 kilometres from my house. Jagged cliffs, little beaches, pine trees bent crooked by the wind, a lovely location. Stormy weather brings out windsurfers; people come by, walking their dogs; but mostly you’re on your own out here. The island conveys a sense of remoteness, which is exactly what I need. Opera singing as a profession can be ultra-stressful and demanding. I get my peace and quiet here on the shoreline.

I grew up surrounded by woods in Småland in southern Sweden. From an early age I was out hunting and fishing and picking mushrooms with my father and brother, who’s five years older than me. The landscape is part of me. We used to go on salmon fishing trips to the north of Norway; there are no salmon around Ingarö, but we have sea trout, which are similar. I like going after them because they’re hard to catch. The conditions have to be right: weather not too nice, a bit cold and windy, that’s when they come closer inshore. I quite like having to be patient and persistent. I prefer quality to size and quantity. That’s what some people want, but I’m not interested in setting records.

What are the important values in life? What brings us joy? What does greed do to us? These are the issues addressed by Franz Schreker in THE TREASURE HUNTER, although those are only some of the issues. It’s a hugely rich and layered opera. I love it!

THE TREASURE HUNTER is also a rumination on the act of telling stories, on the relationship between art and reality. I play Elis, a singer of ballads who wanders the countryside with his magic flute. He has a gift that allows him to find hidden treasure. By singing about a deer, for instance, he can make its eyes turn into jewels, and if he goes to the place referred to in the song, he finds the jewels.

Elis is fascinating. He falls in love with Els, the innkeeper’s daughter. She gets men to do all manner of things – murder or steal for her – and has set her sights on the Queen’s lost jewellery. Elis falls in with her and ends up condemned to death, yet he retains his composure and, being a musician and convinced of the power of art, asks only »to die as I have lived, with a song on my lips«. I can relate to that. As Churchill is meant to have said: »If not for the arts, then what are we fighting for?« Art overcomes boundaries between nations, religions and origins, creating the cohesion that we need as a society.

For me the most touching moment in the opera is the end. Els is dying and Elis tells her one last story of a consoling dream world. »Let fall your head to one side and give me your hand.« He sings of them wandering streets flanked by tall houses »at peace and at leisure, until we reach our yearned-for destination, the magnificent glass palace.« There they are greeted with great fanfare. Elis’s words form a soft cushion for his beloved: art as redemption. This was very much Schreker’s creed, too.

THE TREASURE HUNTER is a musical sensation. The opera spurns traditional phrasing, featuring unexpected twists and abrupt switches in rhythm. No two sheets of Schreker’s score are the same, and he comes up with incredibly catchy melodies! Just by listening to it you’d never guess how hard the work is to sing. It’s a fantastic challenge for me as a singer to make it sound easy.

Daniel Johansson already sang Elis in our premiere in 2022, in the new production by director Christof Loy © Margareta Bloom Sandebäck

 

Sometimes I go to Ingarö to prepare for a role. I leave the rod at home and sit on the shore with a thermos of coffee and immerse myself in the score, not singing but just listening to the birds and the ripples. The music is only in my head.