For as long as I can remember, opera has been the foundation of how I understand storytelling.
I joined the children’s chorus at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm when I was very young, and even then something about the art form captivated me. It wasn’t only the music — it was the storytelling. Watching singers step onto the stage and fully inhabit these larger-than-life emotional worlds made a deep impression on me. Even as a child, I remember being fascinated by the way opera could take something deeply human and make it feel both monumental and intimate at the same time.
Opera demands a particular kind of commitment from the performer. Love, jealousy, devotion, grief — these emotions cannot simply be suggested; they must be lived truthfully and carried across an entire theatre. The voice carries the music, but the body, imagination, and emotional life carry the story. That kind of discipline and emotional honesty becomes part of you as an artist.
It wasn’t until adulthood that I truly discovered my love for screen acting. By that time, opera had already shaped me profoundly. Years of operatic training had given me a strong foundation — not only technically, but emotionally. Opera requires extraordinary discipline and stamina, and it teaches you to trust your instincts when inhabiting a character.
When I eventually stepped in front of a camera, I realized that many of those instincts translated surprisingly naturally. Of course, the experience is very different. Opera asks you to project emotion across a vast space, while the camera invites something quieter and more intimate. But the search for truth — the inner life of the character — remains the same.
Konstantin Stanislavski once wrote, “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.” That idea resonates deeply with how I think about performance. Whether on an opera stage or in front of a camera, the work is never really about the performer alone. It is about serving the story and allowing a character to live truthfully in front of an audience.
For me, film never felt like a departure from opera, but rather a continuation of the same artistic instinct. I often find myself describing opera in cinematic terms when speaking to people who are unfamiliar with the art form. Turandot, for instance, feels almost like an epic fantasy film — overwhelming in scale and emotion — while La Bohème carries the intimacy of a deeply human drama.
These comparisons are not meant to simplify opera, but to show how closely connected different storytelling traditions really are. Both opera and film invite performers to step into another life and share a story that resonates with an audience.
In many ways, these art forms also belong to the same lineage. Opera itself grew out of earlier traditions of sung drama and theatrical storytelling, and cinema later inherited many of those same narrative instincts. The desire to tell human stories through music, movement, and character has simply found new forms across time. Rather than competing with one another, these traditions continue to nourish each other.
Today my work moves between these two artistic languages. Opera remains the foundation of my artistic identity, while my work in film has grown naturally out of that same love of storytelling.
As an artist, I have come to realize that I need both forms in my life. Singing and acting for the screen nourish different parts of my creative instinct, and in many ways they feed each other.
In recent years I have been fortunate to explore both paths in parallel, with several film premieres in 2025 alongside my operatic work. In 2026, the feature film Secret Affairs, in which I appear, is scheduled to premiere in New York. That same year I will return to the operatic stage performing Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Flora in Verdi’s La Traviata in Sweden.
For me, these experiences are not separate careers but part of the same artistic journey. Opera and film simply offer different ways of telling stories — and I feel deeply grateful that my life as an artist allows me to live in both worlds.
Alexandra Olsson Andersén
From the Opera Stage to the Screen: One Storytelling Tradition Leading to Another
For as long as I can remember, opera has been the foundation of how I understand storytelling.
I joined the children’s chorus at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm when I was very young, and even then something about the art form captivated me. It wasn’t only the music — it was the storytelling. Watching singers step onto the stage and fully inhabit these larger-than-life emotional worlds made a deep impression on me. Even as a child, I remember being fascinated by the way opera could take something deeply human and make it feel both monumental and intimate at the same time.
Opera demands a particular kind of commitment from the performer. Love, jealousy, devotion, grief — these emotions cannot simply be suggested; they must be lived truthfully and carried across an entire theatre. The voice carries the music, but the body, imagination, and emotional life carry the story. That kind of discipline and emotional honesty becomes part of you as an artist.
It wasn’t until adulthood that I truly discovered my love for screen acting. By that time, opera had already shaped me profoundly. Years of operatic training had given me a strong foundation — not only technically, but emotionally. Opera requires extraordinary discipline and stamina, and it teaches you to trust your instincts when inhabiting a character.
When I eventually stepped in front of a camera, I realized that many of those instincts translated surprisingly naturally. Of course, the experience is very different. Opera asks you to project emotion across a vast space, while the camera invites something quieter and more intimate. But the search for truth — the inner life of the character — remains the same.
Konstantin Stanislavski once wrote, “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.” That idea resonates deeply with how I think about performance. Whether on an opera stage or in front of a camera, the work is never really about the performer alone. It is about serving the story and allowing a character to live truthfully in front of an audience.
For me, film never felt like a departure from opera, but rather a continuation of the same artistic instinct. I often find myself describing opera in cinematic terms when speaking to people who are unfamiliar with the art form. Turandot, for instance, feels almost like an epic fantasy film — overwhelming in scale and emotion — while La Bohème carries the intimacy of a deeply human drama.
These comparisons are not meant to simplify opera, but to show how closely connected different storytelling traditions really are. Both opera and film invite performers to step into another life and share a story that resonates with an audience.
In many ways, these art forms also belong to the same lineage. Opera itself grew out of earlier traditions of sung drama and theatrical storytelling, and cinema later inherited many of those same narrative instincts. The desire to tell human stories through music, movement, and character has simply found new forms across time. Rather than competing with one another, these traditions continue to nourish each other.
Today my work moves between these two artistic languages. Opera remains the foundation of my artistic identity, while my work in film has grown naturally out of that same love of storytelling.
As an artist, I have come to realize that I need both forms in my life. Singing and acting for the screen nourish different parts of my creative instinct, and in many ways they feed each other.
In recent years I have been fortunate to explore both paths in parallel, with several film premieres in 2025 alongside my operatic work. In 2026, the feature film Secret Affairs, in which I appear, is scheduled to premiere in New York. That same year I will return to the operatic stage performing Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Flora in Verdi’s La Traviata in Sweden.
For me, these experiences are not separate careers but part of the same artistic journey. Opera and film simply offer different ways of telling stories — and I feel deeply grateful that my life as an artist allows me to live in both worlds.
Alexandra Olsson Andersén