Greta Thunberg - Our House Is on Fire - Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis

‘Opera’s being led away from the salons and back to the people,’ was the headline in Expressen . And Dagens Nyheter ’s culture editor wrote: ‘It’s too good to be true. But it’s true.’

For a brief moment I almost believed it was possible: opera could once again be made broad public entertainment.

But when autumn arrived everything was back to normal. Swedish opera institutions weren’t calling wanting to make the most of the opportunity. The audience was there for it, but no one seemed interested in reaching them.

So we decided to do everything ourselves.

Title roles in opera houses abroad and a solo artist at home, self-produced concerts, tours and performances.

All in our pursuit of the new, wider audience.

One evening two weeks before the final Xerxes performance, Svante and I sat slumped on our bathroom floor in Stockholm. It was late, the children were asleep. Everything was starting to fall apart around us. Our apartment walls were behaving differently. Huge cracks had started running across the floor and ceiling and it felt like the whole block would at any second give way and slide down into Lake Klara.

Greta was eleven, had just started fifth grade, and was not doing well. She cried at night when she should have been sleeping. She cried on her way to school. She cried in her classes and during her breaks, and the teachers called home almost every day. Svante had to run off and bring her home. Home to Moses, because only Moses offered any functioning help.

She sat with our Golden Retriever for hours, petting him and stroking his fur. We tried our best, but nothing helped. She was slowly disappearing into some kind of darkness and little by little, bit by bit, she seemed to stop functioning. She stopped playing the piano. She stopped laughing. She stopped talking.

And.

She stopped eating.

We sat there on the hard mosaic floor, knowing exactly what we would have to do. We would have to do everything. We would have to change everything. We would have to find the way back to Greta, no matter the cost.

But that would not be enough. The situation called for more than words and feelings. A closing of accounts. A clean break.

‘How are you feeling?’ Svante asked. ‘Do you want to keep going?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. Fuck this. No more,’ he said. ‘You can’t make opera popular when the opera institutions don’t want opera to be popular. And it doesn’t matter if someone else finds that new audience when no one seems to want it.’

‘I agree. I’m done.’ And I was.

‘If it’s not enough getting twenty thousand people to drive through the woods to an art gallery on an island, three kilometres from the nearest bus stop, all with no sponsors and not a single penny in subsidy… if even that is not enough, not a goddamn thing is going to be enough.’

Svante has a temper, which is not always to his advantage. But there wasn’t much to object to in his conclusion.

‘We’ve taken it as far as we can,’ I said. ‘I honestly don’t think I’d survive if we continued.’

‘So we’ll cancel everything. Every last contract,’ Svante went on. ‘Madrid, Zurich, Vienna, Brussels. Everything. We’ll find something to blame it on. Then we’ll change tack. Concerts, musicals, theatre, TV. Sing opera. Sing the music, but no more opera performances.’

‘I’ll do the final show in two weeks. Then no more.’

I’d made my decision.

‘Should we announce it? Or would that be stupid?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That would probably be a stupid thing to do.’

So we didn’t say anything.

It turns out that I was unconscious for almost ten minutes. The audience was informed that unfortunately the performance would be delayed by a few minutes.

Behind the curtain, there was a buzz of discussion about how the situation should be handled, but that was none of my concern. I knew exactly what I was going to do.

It was time to end this once and for all.

I took a sip of water and nodded at the conductor.

‘Can you stand up?’

‘No.’ I stood up.

‘Can you walk?’

‘No.’ I walked towards the stage door. Worried looks flitted all around me.

‘But can you sing?’

‘No,’ I said, nodding at the stage manager, as I strode out onto the stage.

Those who were there say the applause that night was something special. People stood up and cheered in a way they don’t usually do.

Everyone backstage was carried by the wings of intoxication. Like in a movie. The King and Queen gave an ovation, and it was as if everyone was speaking through laughter.

As if it were all in slow motion. At half the speed.

Pernilla, my agent, helped me off with my costume and wig. ‘Don’t tell Svante what happened. He’ll only worry for no reason.’

She nodded.

From above came voices from the lobby: Swedish, French, German, Spanish.

They all sounded so happy. And as I was being carried out to the taxi, I saw them raise their champagne glasses in a toast. Three cheers and hip-hip-hurrah.

I lay down on the back seat and cried the whole way into the city.

Not because I was sad. Not because I was relieved. Not because everything was what it was.

I was crying because I had no memory of the performance.

It was as though I hadn’t been there at all.

Breakfast: ⅓ banana. Time: 53 minutes.

On a white sheet of paper fixed to the wall we note down everything Greta eats and how long it takes for her to eat it. The amounts are small. And it takes a long time. But the emergency unit at the Stockholm Centre for Eating Disorders says that this method has a good long-term success rate. You write down what you eat meal by meal, then you list everything you can eat, things you wish you could eat and things you want to be able to eat further down the line.

It’s a short list.

Rice, avocados and gnocchi .

It’s Tuesday 11 November 2014 and we find ourselves somewhere between the abyss and Kungsholms Strand in Stockholm. School starts in five minutes. But there isn’t going to be any school today. There isn’t going to be any school at all this week.

Yesterday Svante and I got another email from the school expressing their ‘concern’ about Greta’s lack of attendance, despite the fact that they were in possession of several letters from both doctors and psychologists explaining her situation.

Again, I inform the school office of our situation and they reply with an email saying that they hope Greta will come to school as usual on Monday so ‘this problem’ can be dealt with.

But Greta won’t be in school on Monday. Because Greta stopped eating two months ago and unless a sudden dramatic change occurs she’s going to be admitted to Sachsska Children’s Hospital next week.

We have lunch on the sofa in front of Once Upon a Time on DVD. There are several seasons and each season lasts approximately half a geologic age. Fitting. We need oceans of time to get us through our meals.

Svante is boiling gnocchi. It is extremely important that the consistency is perfect, otherwise it won’t be eaten. All of this over gnocchi, small pasta dumplings made of potato and shaped like little rugby balls.

We set a specific number of gnocchi on her plate. It’s a delicate balancing act; if we offer too many our daughter won’t eat anything and if we offer too few she won’t get enough. Whatever she ingests is obviously too little, but every little bite counts and we can’t afford to waste a single one.