
International Theatre Database
2026.04.06 ~ 2026.04.29
The Metropolitan Opera
2024.06.01 ~ 2024.06.21
San Francisco Opera
North American Premiere
2023.10.07 ~ 2023.10.22
Nationale Opera & Ballet
2023.04.16 ~ 2023.05.03
The Royal Ballet and Opera
2022.10.21 ~ 2022.11.24
Ooppera Baletti
It is a typical wedding for a cosmopolitan city, in present-day Finland. The fiancé is Finnish, the bride Romanian, and the mother-in-law French. But suddenly, during the wedding banquet, the Czech waitress feels ill… Ten years earlier, these characters were struck by a tragic event. Ghosts revive their memories of the trauma, which occurred in a school; there is a guilty haze, a lost innocence. Kaija Saariaho’s new opera is the result of a meeting between this great composer and another Finnish artist, the novelist Sofi Oksanen, who is unrivalled in her ability to force today’s reality to confront the past. Innocence—multiplot opera for soloists, chorus and orchestra— is a contemporary tragedy made radiant through its powerful music and the intermingling of words from different languages. With this world premiere, conducted by musical director Susanna Mälkki and staged by the Australian theatre director Simon Stone, the Festival d’Aix writes a new page in the history of opera.