The first night of Rasmus
Puur’s brand new Estonian opera ”The Colours of Clouds” took place on Friday
and I travelled to Tallinn to Estonia Theatre to see its second performance.
The opera is based on a play by Jaan Kruusvall with the same name and the
libretto is by Laur Lomper.
The story happens in
the near past of Estonia, in the years 1985-1991 around regaining of
independence and it is a story of one family. The opera tells about Estonian
minded, but a bit timid parents (Rauno Elp and Triin Ella), the crazy-courageous
daughter (Kristel Pärtna), who abandons her native land and the opportunistic
son (Mati Turi), who flees Estonia after failed business deals. The composer
wants to stress the question, why after regaining the valuable independence, so
many are ready to leave the country, even forever. Probably because of the
theme the opera is kind of patriotic and contrary to other opera evenings in
Estonia Theatre, I did not hear a word of Russian in the audience. The audience
seemed to consist of Estonian speakers only and even us foreigners were very
scarce. The opera is very touching; when I looked around in the audience, I saw
several wet eyes. It was clear that what happened on the stage touched a lot of
people and brought to mind even painful memories. Amongst the audience there
were lots of people who had lived through these years and their family members
or friends had ended up working abroad and families ties had got looser. The
theme is close to heart, of course, to many other people, too, not just
Estonians.
Puur’s music was from
time to time a bit musical-like and e.g. the aria of the daughter ”I am free” could
have been part of any musical. In addition to these musically megalomaniac
moments, there were also lots of instances where more elementary music kind of
brought emotions to individual level.
Among the most
magnificent moments of the opera were the choir scenes. The choir and boy choir
of Estonia Theatre did a great job in bringing to life the turning points of
Estonia’s history. The soloists also lived through their roles splendidly.
Personally I especially liked the work of Rauno Elp in the role of the father.
It was so credible and realistic that he seemed to practically grow greyer on
the stage.
Estonia Theatre will
perform this opera in Helsinki, in Alexander Theatre on the 24th of November as
a guest performance. It is difficult to say if the atmosphere of the opera will
be different when performed to a mainly Finnish audience, but when heard in the
middle of an Estonian audience, it was fabulous and definitely worth a trip to
Tallinn.
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