Innocence

Can the past be denied and memories erased? After a mass shooting at an international school, pupils, parents and teachers are left horrified and traumatised. The teenage perpetrator is committed to a psychiatric ward. Ten years later, Stela is celebrating her wedding to Tuomas, who she met in her home country of Romania, together with his parents and a priest. She is so happy that she doesn’t ask why there are so few guests. But the waitress hints that there is something Stela doesn’t know – that her groom has another brother.

„Innocence“ is the fifth and final opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952 –2023). Following its acclaimed premiere at the d’Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2021, it went on to enjoy great success in London, Helsinki and Amsterdam. This work deals with acutely relevant questions: What happens to a society after such a gruesome and disturbing act of violence? How can trauma be overcome? Together with librettist Sofi Oksanen and dramaturge Aleksi Barrière, Kaija Saariaho created a gripping yet poignant psychological thriller that relentlessly unpicks the characters’ entangled culpability, layer by layer, while leaving unanswered the question of each person’s guilt or innocence.