Innocence

In the organizer's words:

Can the past be denied, memories erased? After a shooting rampage at an international school, classmates, parents and teachers are left stunned and traumatized. The underage perpetrator is committed to a psychiatric ward. Ten years later, Stela celebrates her wedding with her groom Tuomas, whom she met in her home country of Romania, his parents and the priest. She is happy and doesn't ask why there are so few guests. But the waitress hints that there is something Stela doesn't know - that the groom has another brother.

It is not without reason that Innocence, the fifth and final opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023), will be performed with equal success in London, Helsinki and Amsterdam following its acclaimed premiere at the 2021 Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. It deals with a topic that could hardly be more topical: What happens to a society after such a cruel, disturbing act of violence? How can trauma be overcome? Together with librettist Sofi Oksanen and dramaturge Aleksi Barrière, Kaija Saariaho has created a gripping, poignant psychological thriller that relentlessly reveals the characters' entanglements of guilt layer by layer and yet leaves the question of the (un)guilt of each individual unanswered.