"Innocence" by Kaija Saariaho, Sofi Oksanen, and Aleksi Barrière.
Photo includes Vilma Jää and Ruxandra Donose
The livestream of this great opera is on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, starting at 7:30 pm Pacific Time. I think that Innocence will look good on video. The cost is only $27.50 and the video will be available for 48 hours.
6 comments:
Did you know that Kaija Saariaho's husband was in attendance at the first three performances of Innocence?
Sure do. At the first performance, I spotted him in Box A.
Their children were at the primo, also, and came out for bows at the end. Aleksi handled the libretto translations and was dramaturg. Aliisa is a conductor, not sure what her involvement with the opera was.
The family was also at the Ojai Festival, where several works of Kaija's were performed. Aliisa conducted Lichtbogen as part of the Saturday evening concert: a piece for 9 instruments and live electronics. On Sunday morning the fantastic percussionist Sae Hashimoto performed Six Japanese Gardens on a huge battery of (mostly non-pitched) instruments, with the electronics apparently run partially by the performer's foot pedals and partially by Barrière sitting behind the audience at the sound board (he was not acknowledged either in the program or at the performance).
Both these pieces were full of "how do they do that?" moments, mystifying and jaw-dropping at the same time.
Thank you very much for recommending this. It was a riveting and harrowing experience. The plot and libretto matched the quality of the music. I was reminded of Denis and Katya, which I saw at Opera Philadelphia, and which had somewhat similar themes and a unique staging.
Rob, I heard Steven Schick perform Six Japanese Gardens at Salonen's Sibelius Unbound festival in 2007 - such a great piece.
jcb, I'm glad you got to see it.
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