The Finnish National Opera is set to present “Festen” by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Hall.

The production by Richard Jones, which first opened at the Royal Opera House in London in February 2025 to critical acclaim, will star Darren Jeffery, Susan Bickley, Daniel Brenna, John Chest and Natalya Romaniw.

They will be joined by Georgia Jarman, Kirsi Tiihonen and Robert Bork. James Hendry will conduct.  

In a statement Turnage said, “The main action is in one room, you’ve got the party guests – a chorus – on stage all the time and then, of course, the speeches at the dinner are arias! The film has a sort of heightened reality; although the Dogme style makes it look like a documentary, with the hand-held camera it’s actually hugely wrought as a piece of drama. From a screenwriting point of view, it’s a perfectly stuctured screenplay. It’s a beautiful thing to take to another form, such as opera.”

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