After a two-year corona hiatus, royalty, prize winners and ministers gather tonight at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm City Hall. There will be a huge line-up with three years’ prize winners on site.
When the afternoon award ceremony in Stockholm’s concert hall is over, it’s time for the banquet. At 7 p.m., the main table’s guests marched in to a solemn fanfare with organ and trumpet. The 1,300 guests are served food and drink according to a meticulous schedule interspersed with entertainment and speeches.
This year, there are a record number of prize winners in the Blue Hall, 22. The Nobel Foundation has invited those who have been awarded in the past two years but missed the award ceremony and banquet due to the pandemic.
The King, Queen, Crown Princess, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia are present. Princess Madeleine and her husband Chris O’Neill, however, have announced that they will not be coming this year.
Crown Princess Victoria sits between medicine laureate Svante Pääbo and physics laureate Alain Aspect, the latter having the queen at the table. The king has chemistry laureate Carolyn Bertozzi as his maid of honor. Prince Carl Philip has Linda Vigilant, Svante Pääbo’s wife, as his maid of honor and Prince Daniel has Phaedria Marie St. Hilaire next to him, partners to the Danish chemistry prize winner Morten Meldal.
What was on the plates was a secret until the last, but at 19.30 the starter was brought out, seaweed-baked zander, to which champagne was served. For the main course, minced venison, a wine from Tuscany is drunk.
A total of 190 people are part of the serving staff and 45 of them serve drinks in glasses that cost around SEK 900 each.
Between the courses, according to tradition, entertainment is offered, what is called, in a nicer word, divertissiment. Four such are planned during the banquet. One of those who will appear is the artist and songwriter Rufus Wainwright, and he does it together with the opera singer Elin Rombo and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Hans Ek.