SF Bio Goes to the Opera

Photo: Marco Brescia

Sweden's SF Bio movie theater chain doesn't just show the latest movie hits from Hollywood and the rest of the world, not to mention acclaimed independent films from smaller production companies. Starting in 2009, SF Bio has also been showing taped opera broadcasts from the Salzburg Festival to moviegoers in select theaters across Sweden.

And the opera season has begun again at SF Bio with the premiere of Cosí Fan Tutte on Sept. 14, starring Swedish soprano Miah Persson singing from Salzburg. But this year, Salzburg isn't the only opera house being featured during Opera at SF Bio. Verdi's Simon Boccanegra will be shown in October from La Scala in Milan, Richard Strauss' Salome in November from Teatro Comunale in Bologna and Puccini's Tosca in December from the Munich Festival.

"We decided we wanted to show more operas after the previous season because we got such a great response from our moviegoers," says Martin Strömberg, spokesman for SF Bio. "It feels particularly nice to be able to increase our offering with unique performances from four different opera houses this season."

In addition to the newly added opera houses, the operas themselves will be filmed with additional cameras and even better sound mixing. The opera films will be shown in theaters in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Gävle, Helsingborg, Jönköping, Örebro, Karlstad, Lund, Umeå and Uppsala.