Eatnama Váibmu is created by copywriter Rawdna Carita Eira and composer Britta Byström and is directed by film director Elle Márjá Eira. The audience at the Royal Opera will face a visual new interpretation of Sami tradition.
– It feels fantastic to have the opportunity to direct the first Sami opera on such a large scale, says Elle Márjá Eira.
à Eira is a singer, reindeer herder, film director and writer from Kautokeino. Ho and has, among other things, directed the film theft from “2024.”
– I have never worked with opera before, but I have had to follow another performance in Stockholm and the process does not differ as much as one might believe from making film.
The story revolves around the god Ipmil that creates the sun, the moon, the people, the reindeer and the nature. The sun has two sons, Njáveš and Háhčes, both of which find love, the soldier and the supplies. But then the brothers begin to quarrel and the dramatic events have fateful consequences the day Ipmil returns.
– I feel very confident in directing this, especially because it is a Sami story written by a Sami writer.
“Exciting and scary”
Copywriter Rawdna Carita Eira is a playwright and writer from Norway. Among other things, she has worked as a playwright at the Sami National Theater Beaivváš Sámi Teahter in Norway. In 2011, she debuted as a writer with the novel Ruohta Muzetbeallji Ruohta.
– I have thought a lot what Sami opera is and can be, I have never seen it. So it is exciting but also scary of course, says Elle Márjá Eira.
She is joined by an experienced composer, Ta Byström, whose music has been played by, among others, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Gürzenich orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Sweden’s Radio Symphony Orchestra.
– I feel a freedom in being able to tate a little from my perspective because it has never been done before, but I am very inspired by the Sami storytelling tradition, says Eira.
The opera is aimed at audiences from 10 years onwards and premieres on the Royal Opera’s big stage on November 15, 2025.