''Innocence'' is an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

in five acts by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

was written in Finnish by Sofi Oksanen and translated/adapted by Aleksi Barrière. The opera was co-commissioned by the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the

Dutch National Opera The Dutch National Opera (DNO; formerly De Nederlandse Opera, now De Nationale Opera in Dutch) is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Dutch National Opera & Ballet housed in the Stopera building, a m ...

, the

Finnish National Opera The Finnish National Opera and Ballet ( fi, Suomen Kansallisooppera ja -baletti; sv, Finlands Nationalopera och -balett) is a Finnish opera company and ballet company based in Helsinki. It is headquartered in the Opera House on the coast of the T ...

, and the San Francisco Opera. It received its world premiere on 3 July 2021 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, conducted by

Susanna Mälkki Susanna Ulla Marjukka Mälkki (born 13 March 1969) is a Finnish conductor and cellist. Early life and education Susanna Ulla Marjukka Mälkki was born on 13 March 1969 in Helsinki. She began to learn the violin, piano, and cello in her youth ...

and directed by

Simon Stone Simon Stone (born 19 August 1984) is an Australian film and theatre director, writer and actor. Early life Stone is Australian, but was born in Basel and grew up in Cambridge and Melbourne. His father, Stuart Stone, was a biochemist and his mot ...

. The opera tells the intertwined stories of a wedding in 2000s

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

and a school shooting ten years prior, and has been described as a

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

Plot

The opera, set in 21st century

, tells the intertwined stories of the wedding of Tuomas and Stela and a school shooting ten years prior. Before long, it is revealed that the shooter, who has recently been released, was Tuomas's brother. The family has kept the events from Stela, however, wishing to distance themselves from the event. Tereza, a waitress who was called to work the wedding at the last minute, overhears a conversation about Tuomas's brother; she is the mother of one of the shooting victims, Markéta, who appears throughout the opera as a ghost. The events of the wedding reception are interspersed with scenes from the school, narrated by the teacher. While all the characters at the wedding are cast as opera singers, the surviving students are all "musical actors", separating them into what Saariaho and Oksanen refer to as "the realm of memories". Throughout the opera, the involvement of the surviving students and of Tuomas in the tragedy is explored, making it clear that none is wholly innocent. The shooter is never represented onstage, however, with the opera instead focusing on the aftermath of the tragedy and its effect on the victims. Tereza eventually breaks her silence, lashing out at Tuomas's mother and demanding an explanation. The family is then forced to explain the tragedy to Stela, who, to their surprise, is prepared to forgive Tuomas. Tuomas, however, explains that he feels personally responsible for the tragedy and unable to escape his past, and so decides to leave Stela. The opera concludes with Markéta singing to Tereza plaintively, comforting her and asking her to move on.

Roles

Each character sings in their native language (Finnish, Czech, French, Romanian, Swedish, German, Spanish, or Greek), with communication between characters occurring in English. The role of Markéta, specified merely as a "folk singer" in the score, includes Finnish cow-herding calls and improvised cadenzas. The role was created for and in collaboration with , a Finno-Ugric folk singer and researcher of herding songs who, as of 2024, has sung the role in all productions to date.

Instrumentation

The piece is scored for the following orchestra:

Woodwinds

:3 Flutes (1st and 2nd doubling

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

, 3rd doubling

alto flute The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, the second-highest member below the standard C flute after the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the ...

) :3 Oboes :3 Clarinets (3rd doubling

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

) :3 Bassoons (3rd doubling

contrabassoon The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences. Differences from the bassoon The reed is consi ...

)

Brass

Horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...

:2 Trumpets :3 Trombones :1 Tuba

Percussion

Timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

Percussion 1

Glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

: Crotales :2 Woodblocks : Suspended cymbal (small) :

Bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...

: Maracas : Tom-tom

Percussion 2

Vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

Xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

:Tom-tom : Frame drum :

Snare drum The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used ...

:Wood chimes :Suspended cymbal (medium)

Percussion 3

Marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

:Crotales : Tam-tam :2 Suspended cymbals (small, large) :Snare drum :Large frame drum :

Triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...

: Cowbell : Cabasa

Percussion 4

: Tubular bells :Bass drum :Snare drum : Slit drum :Glass chimes :Triangle : Guiro :Woodblock :Small finger cymbal with triangle beater :Chinese tom-tom : Sizzle cymbal with chain :Suspended cymbal (large) :

Bell tree A bell tree, also known as tree bellsBeck, John. ''Encyclopedia of Percussion.'' Taylor and Francis, 1995. or Chinese bell tree (often confused with the mark tree), is a percussion instrument, consisting of vertically nested inverted metal bowl ...

Keyboards

:Piano :

Celesta The celesta or celeste , also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five-octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music box ( ...

Strings

Harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

Strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

Performances

''Innocence'' received its premiere on 3 July 2021 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, with

conducting the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

and the

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) is a professional choir based in Estonia. It was founded in 1981 by Tõnu Kaljuste, who was its conductor for twenty years. In 2001, Paul Hillier followed Kaljuste's tenure, becoming the EPCC's princip ...

, and directed by

. The production was subsequently performed in October–November 2022 at the

, in April–May 2023 at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...

, in October 2023 at the

, and in June 2024 at San Francisco Opera. In 2022, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City announced that they would present Stone's production of the opera. Shortly following Saariaho's death in June 2023, they announced that it would be part of their 2025–2026 season. Upon its performance, Saariaho will be the first female composer ever to have two operas staged at the Met. (Her first was ''

L'Amour de loin ' (''Love from Afar'') is an opera in five acts with music by Kaija Saariaho and a French-language libretto by Amin Maalouf. The opera received its world premiere performance on 15 August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival. Saariaho, living in Paris si ...

'', in 2016, only the second opera by a woman ever performed there).

Reception

''Innocence'' has been received well by critics, with

Zachary Woolfe Zachary Woolfe is an American music critic who specializes in classical music. Since 2022 he has been chief classical music critic for ''The New York Times''. Education and career Woolfe studied at Princeton University. Although he "had wri ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' calling it Saariaho's "masterpiece". In a five-star review of the opera's London production for ''The Telegraph'',

Nicholas Kenyon Sir Nicholas Roger Kenyon CBE (born 23 February 1951, in Cheshire) is an English music administrator, editor and writer on music. He was responsible for the BBC Proms in 1996–2007, after which he was appointed Managing Director of the Barbican C ...

also referred to the opera as a "modern masterpiece". Richard Morrison of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' gave the opera four stars, calling it a "visceral, volatile thriller" and commenting on the opera's topicality. Andrew Clements reviewed the opera somewhat less favorably, giving it three stars in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. Clements praised the libretto, the production, and the "unfailingly beautiful" orchestral music, but claimed that the music (particularly the vocal writing) failed to match the heights of the drama. Vilma Jää's performance as Markéta, and Saariaho's use of Finnish folk singing techniques for the role, have been particularly praised. Mälkki has described the work as "one of the most important works of our time", while

Simon Rattle Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British-German conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal ...

compared its importance to that of Alban Berg's ''

Wozzeck ''Wozzeck'' () is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama ''Woyzeck'', which the German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at h ...

''.

References

{{Authority control Operas by Kaija Saariaho Operas 2021 operas Multiple-language operas Operas set in the 21st century Operas set in Finland Helsinki in fiction