‘Innocence’ and violence: Kaija Saariaho at the ROH

In Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, a school shooting reverberates a decade later, when one of the plotters is about to get married. His bride (Lilian Farahani) has no idea that her husband-to-be (Markus Nykänen) is the brother of the teenager who shot ten students and one teacher. But one waitress, Tereza (Jenny Carlstedt) at the wedding reception knows very well. After working abroad she is drafted in at the last minute and horrified to see that the bride’s family knows nothing of the dark history. The groom was hardly innocent as he, his brother and another student (Iris) planned the whole thing, but in the course of the opera Iris reveals that it was inspired as a reaction against bullying.

There are shades of the 1999 Columbine massacre here. That infamous event was turned into a movie, Elephant. That in turn inspired the director of this production (Simon Stone) of the distinguished living composer Kaija Saariaho’s new opera, Innocence. Like Ms Saariaho, the librettist, Sofi Oksanen, is Finnish and her story is set in Helsinki. Its five acts are all staged together on a revolving set with the narrative shifting from one to another. It starts with a wedding, meant to be a fresh start for the groom, but blown apart by a chance encounter. As the opera unfolds, it becomes clear that a marriage cannot succeed if it is based on an evasion by one of the partners.

Unlike a Greek tragedy such as Medea, where wrong-doing is punished fiercely and immediately, this story involves a ten-year gap between the original action and its aftermath. People’s lives have moved on, but much remains undiscussed and unresolved. Two of the most vivid protagonists are mothers: Tereza, haunted by her dead daughter; and the mother (Sandrine Piau) of the groom and his brother, the murderer. She is frozen into denial by the deed, and wants to invite the groom’s brother to the wedding, even though her husband (Christopher Purves) has rejected him from the family.

Unlike Medea, where catharsis is found in retribution, here reconciliation is only possible through truth. Only honesty can lead to forgiveness and create the basis for peace.

Saariaho’s music is kind to the singers in the sense that they never seem to be battling with it, but give life to the intertwining storylines. It begins in a discordant haunting style, and contains an undercurrent of disharmony between the reality that unfolds and the bloody action it recalls. The priest (Timo Riihonen) sings of retaining his faith despite seeing famines and mass graves, yet he was already aware of the murderer’s problem, having seen him as a boy poison a bird and enjoy its agony. The teacher (Lucy Shelton) regrets not doing anything about various oddities in the boy’s behaviour, such as always writing of himself in the third person. All part of an insidious pattern that went unremarked amidst the varied backgrounds and languages of the children at the international school where this takes place.

Musically this was wonderful, under the baton of Susanna Mälkki of the Helsinki Philharmonic, who has conducted widely in Europe and America. It is subtle music, as one expects from a major composer, whose L’Amour de loin was seen at the English National Opera in 2009. This time the subject matter has a far more cutting edge, and the music reflects that. How can one tell when a boy with a disturbed personality might suddenly flip and become a serious danger? One can’t, but a fascination with guns and the opportunity to use them is the fatal flaw that can lead to tragedy in the ancient Greek sense.

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