“Despite many operas being hundreds of years old, they offer a highly relevant reminder: everything you feel has been felt by someone before you, and you are not alone. The conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt once said that art is not a beautiful accessory but rather what safeguards our humanity. And that it is only when music operates at the very edge of catastrophe that it becomes truly beautiful.”

Rebecka Wallroth was born in 1999 and was brought up within the operatic tradition. Her mother sang at the Opera, as did her great-great-grandfather. Her elder sister, Johanna Wallroth, is also a professional singer and received the Mogren Music Prize in 2020. Yet, even though her career choice followed family tradition, Rebecka took nothing for granted.

“As a small child, I assumed all mothers sang at the Opera in the evenings. But as a teenager, after several years of choral singing, my interest in opera truly awakened. It was after taking part in productions at Läckö Castle Opera over several summers that I became genuinely inspired by the collaborative nature of putting on a production,” says Rebecka.

Rebecka left home at just 16 and nervously took her first steps towards a possible career. Even opera singers can need help finding their sense of self-belief. Rebecka speaks emphatically about how important certain people have been to her confidence – her sister, with her wise counsel and solid experience, and the singing teacher and court singer Anita Soldh at the Music Conservatoire in Falun.

“My time with Anita was invaluable and she inspired me enormously. In today's arts education, it feels as though the stigma around pursuing an elite art form at an international level is still very much present. There is an underlying sense that you shouldn't aim too high or think too much of yourself. Anita paid absolutely no attention to that, and I'm deeply grateful for it,” says Rebecka.

Rebecka has now lived outside Sweden for ten years. The best schools and jobs are abroad. And one of the world's leading music universities happened to be in Vienna once she had finished secondary school.

The Law of Jante doesn't work here

“The culture shock in Vienna was enormous. I always ended up being the little girl in the class, despite not being the youngest, the smallest, or the least experienced. I was trapped by the Law of Jante and almost physically shrank into myself, whilst my classmates walked into every audition with the attitude that they were ‘the Voice of the Century.”

Rebecka quickly understood that her modest manner needed to be tempered. As an opera singer, you are not only competing with your classmates but with singers from across the entire world.

“I needed to go on quite a journey to be taken seriously. The self-belief was there, really – you don't apply for courses and competitions if you don't think you belong there. But I needed to remind myself of that and practise my courage, repeatedly.”

A vaccine against narrow-mindedness

Going to the opera engages both the mind and the heart. Today, people live increasingly in isolation, in front of screens, inside their own filter bubbles. In doing so, we risk painting the world in far too black-and-white terms, Rebecka believes.

“Opera pulls us in the opposite direction, out of our narrow outlooks and echo chambers, towards our emotions so that we understand each other better. I think the combination of music, dance, theatre and storytelling strikes a deeply human chord. Perhaps simply by sitting down together in an auditorium and experiencing something as one, rather than remaining in closed rooms with our screens,” says Rebecka.

Many older operatic works portray a misogynistic history, in which women are openly regarded as inferiors. The MeToo movement that emerged in 2017 reminded us why we must never stay silent on these issues.

“The misogynistic worldview that characterises so many operas has not yet disappeared from reality. We must continue to provoke reactions and questions around power, love, hierarchies, hatred and abuse – to portray narratives that are problematic and demeaning to women. Not to normalise them, but to keep a critical dialogue alive.”

But why must opera in particular do that?

“Opera's music and staging make it easier to absorb difficult questions. We are trained to truly reach people and convey something. Of course, it is wonderful when something can simply be entertaining, but I believe we are capable of so much more than that.”