The Secrets of Marriage

The Secrets of Marriage is an opera double bill about living together - through love, jealousy, and truths hidden in smoke. Two rarely performed operas tell of the habit of concealing things from the person we love, and how absurd it becomes when secrets are revealed.

In the tragicomic On the Harmfulness of Tobacco - originally a monologue by Anton Chekhov - a lecturer deviates from his subject and speaks with increasing candour about his own marriage. As a frustrated husband, he points to all the small compromises we make to preserve a little part of ourselves in peace. In the comedy Susanna's Secret, the same man suspects an unfamiliar tobacco scent at home. Has his wife had a visitor from a lover? The couple is swept into a marital dance where the turns take them from solitude to togetherness.

On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, an opera monologue in one act by Martin Kalmanoff (1920-2007). Libretto: Anton Chekhov. Swedish translation: Mattias Ermedahl. Susanna's Secret, an opera in one act by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948). Libretto: Enrico Golisciani. Swedish translation: Jonas Egfors.

Performing: Carolina Sandgren, Mattias Ermedahl. Direction: Louise Ahlsell. Set design: Elin Emretsson. Lighting design: Johan Hebbe. Production: Gothenburg Opera.