NEWS

   

– FEBRUARY 2024 –
The OPUS magazine list of notable achievements in classical music in 2023

Thank you Opus (Scandinavia’s biggest magazine about classical music and opera) for including me on this list of composers, performers, organisations or ensembles who made a mark in the field in 2023. 💕
“To the unified applause of critics Mikael Karlsson transformed Lars von Trier’s dystopian film “Melancholia” (2011) into an opera at The Royal Swedish Opera this fall.
The next adaptation of a film is “Fanny and Alexander” which premieres in Brussels 2024, again with his wingman Royce Vavrek as librettist. According to many, the Halland-born Harlem-resident is to be considered one of today’s greatest avant-gardists in opera. Karlsson collaborates equally comfortably with the Paris Opera and soul artist Alicia Keys, as unpretentiously with Carnegie Hall as with pop star Lykke Li. Karlsson has also composed music for the video games Battlefield: Bad Company 1 & 2 and, according to DN (leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter), ‘embodies the image of a composer of the future’. We can only agree”
Happy to be in the company of such lovely colleagues, and I’m of course especially happy to see Ola Eliasson (who performed the role of John in Melancholia) also on the list.
It goes without saying that opera is a team sport, so I send an extra thank you to the hundreds of people who built Melancholia with us.

– JANUARY 2024 –
From Melancholia to Fanny and Alexander to Alexander Ekman

After a completely sold out run at the Royal Swedish Opera, a phenomenal reception from the press and the audience (much younger than usual, and many many newcomers), I am back in NYC listening through the recorded sound from the show that will go with the tv broadcast of the show, directed by Andreas Morell for EuroArts Music. The show will reach a myriad of tv networks in 2024.

Melancholia now has its own page on the website, under WORKS/OPERA.

My work now turns to Fanny and Alexander for the La Monnaie Opera House in Brussels. Once again, Royce Vavrek is the librettist, writing the opera with me, and this time around legendary director Ivo van Hove and his team joins us. As always, Michael P. Atkinson is orchestrating with me. We premiere Fanny and Alexander in December 2024.

2024 will se the returns of many of Alexander Ekman’s pieces for which I have written the music. Midsummer Night’s Dream will return with the Joffrey Ballet, with the Royal Swedish Ballet and with the Dortmund Ballet this coming spring.

INSTA
You can find me on Instagram under the handle @mika_karlsson 😉

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