A night at the opera rounded off the second day of the Swedish state visit in Vietnam.
Soprano Anna Eklund Tarantino and conductor Mats Liljefors were the Swedish contributions at the French style Hanoi opera house, grandly illuminated in honour of the royal guests.
While all performances were highly appreciated some guests felt that the colonial atmosphere was a bit too much on the chilly side, because so many French windows in the edifice were left wide open to keep the interior fresh and cool.
Swedish arts were displayed the day after, at Hanoi Fine Arts University, where three young artists from the university of Umeå in northern Sweden received Queen Silvia who cut the ribbon for the Vietnam-Swedish art exhibition “Open”.
“And now I am very curious to see what you have inside,” said Queen Silvia while she entered the hall.
“Fantastic,” said artist Gerd Aurell about the experience in Hanoi, meeting Vietnamese colleagues and topping it off seeing Queen Silvia, with fellow artist Roland Persson nodding in agreement.
Even more upbeat was the third Swedish artist.
“Vietnam is like candy for the eyes!” exclaimed Camilla Rosberg. “They work so much with colours here.”
She drew on that experience in her colourful installation “Peak-Paus 2” which also made Queen Silvia to stop and talk for a while with Camilla.
