photo of person in long coat with painted pattern

Jenny Kalliokulju, MAMAN or The Tounge, 2024 Photo: Martin Magntorn Courtesy: The artist

Opera – MAMAN, or THE TOUNGE

Chamber Opera by Jenny Kalliokulju

8.2 – 9.2 2025

Malmö

The role of the family and the cycles of the everyday are addressed in the experimental, feminist, and humorous chamber opera MAMAN, or THE TONGUE, in which the artist and writer Jenny Kalliokulju interweaves art, song, music and theatre.

The aim is an interdisciplinary, anti-hierarchical Gesamtkunstwerk, in which a painting installation also takes the shape of scenography and costumes during the performance of the opera.

Formally, Kalliokulju’s work is often a collaboration (real or fictitious) with other artists, writers and academics. In the libretto, these voices form a choir and a dialogue together, which evokes a universal state of existential reflection and a striving for co-existence. The libretto comes from the artist’s own experiences as a mother of two. Everyday life, feelings of inadequacy are all palpable. Yet, despite its personal point of departure it captures a strongly familiar situation of everyday life’s cycles of relationships and physical bodies.

Performers: Margaretha Dalhamn, Carl Henning Fredriksson, Jenny Kalliokulju, Johanna Kalliokulju, Tobias Kalliokulju, Oskar Roslund
Light: Sofia Ivarsson