Arts & Events

Kaija Sarriaho’s final opera, Innocence, is currently being given its US première performances at San Francisco Opera’s War Memorial Opera House., where I attended this new opera on Friday evening, June 7. The plot of Innocence, based on a libretto in Finnish by Sofi Oksanen and restyled in a multilingual libretto by Aleksi Barrière, opens at a wedding party in Helsinki, where Tuomas, the Finnish bridegrrom, is set to marry Stela, a Romanian woman he met while vacationing in Roma-nia. In the opening scene, Stela speaks of how happy she is to find a new, loving family, and she reveals that as an infant she was abandoned by her mother at an orphanage. This is the opera’s first of many backstories that reveal traumatic personal histories that lie beneath the smiles of cele-brants at a wedding party.  

The parents of Tuomas, Henrik and Patricia, are delighted to welcome their new daughter-in-law into the family, but they differ on whether to tell Stela of a tragic event that happened to the family ten years earlier. Patricia argues that Tuomas’s brother should be invited to the wedding. Henrik, stridently disagrees, saying the older brother no longer is a part of this family. Just what this event was is not divulged initially in this opera. It is, apparently, too sensitive to be named and spoken of directly by the bridegroom’s family. However, Henrik acknowleges that he failed to keep the gun securely locked away and that he himslf taught his older son to shoot. Little by little, the nature of the tragic event is revealed as different characters who experienced this event reveal how difficult it has been for them to move on and put the past behind them.  

Several of them, in fact, were victims of this event and were killed ten years ago. Their younger selves discuss what they thought was happening at the time of this tragic event. The first character to recognise that the bridegroom and his parents were intimately involved in the tragedy that un-folded ten years ago is the Czech waitress Tereza, whose daughter Marketa was killed in the tragic event. Marketa, at the time, like many of her friends, was a student at an International Schooli n Helsinki. Several of these students, from diverse countries, tell in their own languages what led up to the tragic event. (There are nine different languages spoken and/or sung in this opera.) Gradual-ly, it becomes clear to the audience that a mass shooting was carried out at the International School by Tuomas’s older brother. Seven students and a teacher were killed.  

In keeping with the sombre, tragic issue at hand of school shootings, Kaija Saariaho’s music is largely, though by no means always, full of turbulence and stress. Vocally, soprano Claire de Sévigné was excellent as Patricia, the mother-in-law. Baritone Rod Gilfry was a stellar father-in-law. Likewise, soprano Lilian Farahani was superb as Stela. Mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose was outstanding as Tereza. In the role of Tuomas, the bridegroom, tenor Miles Mykannen was credita-ble though lacking any star power. As Marketa, soprano Vilma Jaa was remarkable, this role having been created for her by Saariaho. The International School teacher killed in the shooting was finely sung by soprano Lucy Shelton. Interestingly, the shooter himself, much less the shooting, are never shown onstage in this opera, a choice not to allow spectacle to overwhelm the audience. However, a priest, admirably sung by bass Kristin Sigmundsson, reveals that he saw the future killer poison a bird as a youth and sadistically watch it die; but the priest never warned anyone of what he sensed was not right about this boy. 

To complicate matters still further, a character is introduced, Iris, who reveals she was a close friend of the shooter and partiicipated as an auxiliary in his shooting spree. Iris, admirably sung by Julie Hega, also reveals that Marketa and a group of her friends frequently bullied the future shoot-er and may very well have led him to seek revenge by shooting them. Finally, in yet another shock-ing development, Tuomas acknowledges that he idolized his older brother and supported him in planning the shooting. However, once the shooting began, Tuomas ran safely away with all who could escape, an act for which Iris accuses Tuomas of betraying his brother.  

In the all too frequent annals of school shootings, one must offer a reservation that largely excludes prior school bullying as a reason for the shooter’s actions. If in this opera it seems an element of overdetermination, at least it has the merit of pointing out the possibility of the psychological dam-age that being bullied can have on young people’s psyche. By the way, there was one confusing moment late in this opera when a young man reveals in Sprechgesung (or “talk-singing”) that after the tragic event he left the country, assumed another name, and began to make a new life for him-self. At first I thought this character was the shooter. But a woman from the audience assured me it was not. When I asked why she was so sure, she replied, “I have the libretto.” Point taken. Howev-er, since we know from his parents that the shooter is still alive and apparently free to attend his younger brother’s wedding — though how this could be is unthinkable — it is natural to assume, or at least to conjecture, that this character who speaks of starting a new life is the shooter himself making his one-and-0nly appearance in the whole opera.  

The final words in Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence are spokekn by Marketa to her mother, Tereza. And these words are simply, “Let me go,” as she exits the stage. This seems to be Saariaho’s intuition that people may need to let go of their deepest hurts in life in order to move beyond a traumatic past. But, as this opera demonstrates, this is not an easy task when the hurts have been so traumat-ic, devastatiing, and deep.  

Throughout Innocence, this production’s sets were constantly revolving, offering different multi-leveled perspectives on the actions and remembered actions of the protagonists. The set designer was Chloe Lanford. The production itself was by Simon Stone. The revival director was Louise Bakker.. Costumes were by Mel Page. Lighting designer was James Farcombe. The chorus was never seen onstage but was admirably led by Chorus Director John Keene. Last but by no means least, conductor Clement Mao-Takacs did an outstanding job of bringing this avant-garde music to a fine-tuned and emotive musical fruition. Hats off to Clement Mao-Takacs.