Innocence - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Innocence
Date:
Time:
Price class:
Location:
11.04.2025 , Friday
20:00
B
Dresden, Semperoper, Theaterplatz 2, 01067 Dresden
Seating plan
Opera in five acts Original Finnish libretto by Sofi Oksanen. Multilingual translation & dramaturgy by Aleksi Barrière
Premiere March 15, 2025
In English, Finnish, Czech, French, Romanian, Swedish, German, Spanish and Greek with German and English surtitles
Can the past be denied and memory erased? After a shooting at an international school, classmates, parents and teachers are left stunned and traumatized. The underage perpetrator is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Ten years later, Stela celebrates her wedding with her groom Tuomas, whom she met in her home country Romania, his parents and the priest. She is happy and doesn't ask why there are so few guests. But the waitress suggests 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 the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023), will be equally successful in London, Helsinki and after its acclaimed premiere in 2021 as part of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence Amsterdam shown. It deals with a topic that could hardly be more timely: What happens to a society after such a cruel, disturbing act of violence? How can trauma be overcome? Together with the librettist Sofi Oksanen and the dramaturge Aleksi Barrière, Kaija Saariaho created a gripping, moving psychological thriller that relentlessly reveals the characters' guilt, layer by layer, and yet leaves the question of each individual's (in)guilt open.
Subject to change.
Premiere March 15, 2025
In English, Finnish, Czech, French, Romanian, Swedish, German, Spanish and Greek with German and English surtitles
Can the past be denied and memory erased? After a shooting at an international school, classmates, parents and teachers are left stunned and traumatized. The underage perpetrator is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Ten years later, Stela celebrates her wedding with her groom Tuomas, whom she met in her home country Romania, his parents and the priest. She is happy and doesn't ask why there are so few guests. But the waitress suggests 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 the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023), will be equally successful in London, Helsinki and after its acclaimed premiere in 2021 as part of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence Amsterdam shown. It deals with a topic that could hardly be more timely: What happens to a society after such a cruel, disturbing act of violence? How can trauma be overcome? Together with the librettist Sofi Oksanen and the dramaturge Aleksi Barrière, Kaija Saariaho created a gripping, moving psychological thriller that relentlessly reveals the characters' guilt, layer by layer, and yet leaves the question of each individual's (in)guilt open.
Subject to change.