SF Opera's Innocence

* Notes *
Kaija Saariaho's Innocence had a U.S. premiere last night at San Francisco Opera, almost exactly a year after her death. The performance was gripping, the music, narrative, and staging all had a relentless intensity.

As with Adriana Mater, the opera from Saariaho performed by San Francisco Symphony the previous June, Innocence deals with a very difficult topic. Sofi Okansen's original Finnish libretto, which was made into the nine-language final version by Aleksi Barriere, deals with a school shooting and its aftermath a decade later. The way the story unwinds, starting at a wedding reception in Helsinki and gradually taking us into the international school where the shooting takes place is very effective. The story is nuanced, there are many characters, but we are able to understand that nothing is black and white, nothing is simple.

The enormous set has two levels (pictured, photographs by Cory Weaver) and is basically looks like a modernist building. It revolves the entire 108 minutes of the opera, which has no intermission, and the scenes are changed when rooms are out of view. The crew members did an incredible job, and having rooms change from a reception hall into a classroom, which seemed to happen undetectably, pulled the audience into the world of this opera. 

Saariaho's music is, however, the beating heart of this piece. The eerie textures of the orchestra had much color and shape under the baton of Maestro Clément Mao-Takacs. There wasn't a moment when my attention flagged, the intensity of focus from the orchestra pit was palpable. There were particularly beautiful soli from the bassoon, oboe, and harp. The brass and strings all sounded clear and clean.

The singers had microphones, which is characteristic of Sariaaho's work. This piece has a lot of speech singing (Sprechgesang) and the amplification made for good intelligibility, I could definitely understand the English, German, and Spanish without looking at the supertitles, which were provided in English above and in whichever language the words were in, which was so helpful. I really appreciated seeing the text, so that at a glance I could tell what language we were hearing.

There are a lot of principal singers for this opera, 21 in total. Soprano Vilma Jää was a standout, her portrayal of Student #1 (Markéta) was otherworldly. Her vocal technique comes from Finnish folk music, and her part was written for her. While it wasn't what one normally hears at the opera, it felt very much in place for this performance. Soprano Lucy Shelton as the Teacher was also very strong, she very much appeared to be a shattered person, it was clear in her singing. 

Baritone Rod Gilfry sang the Father-in-Law with warmth and subtlety, while soprano Claire de Sévigné gave an icy, almost frightening contrast as the Mother-in-Law. Tenor Miles Mykkanen has a pretty sound as the Bridegroom, but was able to effortlessly convey the different emotions of the opera. Soprano Lilian Farahani was a fine counterpoint as the Bride, her character is not in the community when the school shooting happened. She is perhaps easiest to identify with in the story, as what happens is unfolding to her as well. Mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose (Waitress) is the most devastating though, her pain felt very real to me, and her rich, powerful voice showed the anguish of losing a child.

* Tattling *
There were light whispers in Box A, but Box B (which included librettist Okansen, who had to scurry out to take her ovation) was exceedingly quiet. I did not hear or see anyone's cellular phone.

The advisory for this opera warned us of "FOG" in large letters, but of the gun violence in much smaller type below. I did not even detect this fog, but perhaps I was too fixated on other aspects of the performance. Cake is thrown out of anger and frustration, for example, which I really was not expecting.