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Innocence
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Innocence - Kaija Saariaho
Opera in five acts
Finnish original libretto by Sofi Oksanen. Multilingual translation & dramaturgy by Aleksi Barrière
Performed in English, Finnish, Czech, French, Romanian, Swedish, German, Spanish and Greek with German and English supertitles
Premiere: March 15, 2025
A wedding party turns into a gripping psychological thriller in which the murky past catches up with the present.
In brief
Can the past be denied and memories erased? After a mass shooting at an international school, pupils, parents and teachers are left horrified and traumatised. The teenage perpetrator is committed to a psychiatric ward. Ten years later, Stela is celebrating her wedding to Tuomas, who she met in her home country of Romania, together with his parents and a priest. She is so happy that she doesn’t ask why there are so few guests. But the waitress hints that there is something Stela doesn’t know – that her groom has another brother.
„Innocence“ is the fifth and final opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952 –2023). Following its acclaimed premiere at the d’Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2021, it went on to enjoy great success in London, Helsinki and Amsterdam. This work deals with acutely relevant questions: What happens to a society after such a gruesome and disturbing act of violence? How can trauma be overcome? Together with librettist Sofi Oksanen and dramaturge Aleksi Barrière, Kaija Saariaho created a gripping yet poignant psychological thriller that relentlessly unpicks the characters’ entangled culpability, layer by layer, while leaving unanswered the question of each person’s guilt or innocence.
Program and cast
The Waitress (Tereza): Paula Murrihy
The Bride (Stela): Rosalia Cid
The Mother-In-Law (Patricia): Anu Komsi
The Bridegroom (Tuomas): Mario Lerchenberger
The Father-In-Law (Henrik): Markus Butter
The Priest: Jukka Rasilainen
The Teacher: Fredrika Brillembourg
Student (Iris): Nusch Batut
Student (Anton): Simon Jensen
Student (Alexia): Olga Heikkilä
Musical Direction: Maxime Pascal
Direction: Lorenzo Fioroni
Stage: Paul Zoller
Costumes: Annette Braun
Lighting: Fabio Antoci
Chorus: Jonathan Becker
Sound Design: Timo Kurkikangas
Dramaturgy: Dorothee Harpain
Saxon State Opera Choir Dresden
Saxon State Orchestra Dresden
Semperoper Dresden
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (Saxon State Opera) and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden (Saxon State Orchestra). It is also home to the Semperoper ballet. The building is located near the Elbe River in the historic centre of Dresden, Germany.
The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841. After a devastating fire in 1869, the opera house was rebuilt, partly again by Semper, and completed in 1878. The opera house has a long history of premieres, including major works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
The first opera house at the location of today's Semperoper was built by the architect Gottfried Semper. It opened on 13 April 1841 with an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. The building style itself is debated among many, as it has features that appear in three styles; Early Renaissance and Baroque, with Corinthian style pillars typical of Greek classical revival. Perhaps the most suitable label for this style would be eclecticism, where influences from many styles are used, a practice most common during this period. Nevertheless, the opera building, Semper's first, is regarded as one of the most beautiful European opera houses.
© Vika Glitter / Pixabay
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