(Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera) Trigger Warning: This review includes discussion of school shootings. If you walked up to Lincoln Center from Broadway on Monday evening, you might have seen a line of people dressed in white holding up images of people. Underneath the images were their names, who they were, and the senseless event that took their lives. {…}
(Credit: Karen Almond / Met Opera) The Metropolitan Opera is set to present the company premiere of “Innocence,” Kaija Saariaho’s final opera, The opera, which has a libretto by Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, will be directed by Simon Stone and conducted by Susanna Mälkki. The opera is set during a wedding in Helsinki, ten years after a shooting at an {…}
The Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2025-26 season. New Productions The season opens on a Sunday with Mason Bates and Gene Scheer’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” in its Met Opera premiere. Bartlett Sher directs and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a cast starring Lauren Snouffer, Sun-Ly Pierce, Miles Mykkanen, Patrick Carfizzi, Craig Colclough, and Andrzej Filoncyzk. Performance Dates: Sept. {…}
San Francisco Opera has announced that it will present “Beyond Innocence,” an initiative to provide additional context for its upcoming production of Kaija Sariaaho’s “Innocence.” The initiative includes a daylong symposium “BEYOND INNOCENCE: The Power of Community and the Arts & the Prevention of Gun Violence,” presented by San Francisco Opera, Live Free USA, and Lumahai Productions. There will be {…}
The San Francisco Opera is set to present the American premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho’s final opera, “Innocence.” The opera, which will be performed, at the War Memorial Opera House from June 1 to 21, 2024, had its world premiere at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2021. “Innocence” is a 105-minute opera in five acts without intermission that is performed in {…}
The Olivier Awards have announced the 2024 winners. For this article, we will focus on the opera categories only. The TAIT Award for Best New Opera Production went to “Innocence” by the Royal Opera at the Royal Opera House. The opera, which had its world premiere in 2021, was Kaija Saariaho‘s final opera. The award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera {…}
The Olivier Awards have announced their 2024 nominations. Here are the opera category nominees: TAIT Award for Best New Opera Production “Blue” by the English National Opera at the London Coliseum “Innocence” by the Royal Opera at the Royal Opera House “Picture A Day Like This” by the Royal Opera at the Royal Opera House – Linbury Theatre “The Rhinegold” {…}
(Photo credit: Marta Syrko) The Dutch National Opera is set to present Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” for six performances this fall. The production, which opens on Oct. 10, 2023 and runs through the 22nd, will be directed by Simon Stone and conducted by Elena Schwarz. The opera is set to star Jenny Carlstedt, Lenneke Ruiten, Thomas Oliemans, Lilian Farahani, Markus Nykanen, {…}
The Metropolitan Opera has announced that it will present Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” during the 2025-26 season. In a tribute statement to the composer, who died on June 2, the company said, “The Met mourns the loss of eminent Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who recently passed away at age 70. Saariaho made Met history in 2016 with the company premiere of {…}
(Photo: Mary Em) Kaija Saariaho’s new opera “Innocence” premiered at this summer’s Festival d’Aix-En-Provence to widespread acclaim. “Innocence” is about a school shooting in an International school. In the role of Markéta, one of the shooter’s victims was the young Finnish singer Vilma Jää, who found herself receiving enthusiastic applause for her extraordinary performances. Jää is a marvelous singer with {…}
(Photo: Jean-Louis Fernandez) Postponed from last year, owing to COVID restrictions, Kaija Saariaho’s new opera “Innocence” finally received its world premiere at this year’s Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and it did not disappoint. The libretto, written by Sofi Oksanen, interweaves two narratives which relate to a school shooting. One focuses on the students and their teacher who were present at the time {…}