Aino Ackté in the Alexander Theatre, the 12th of November, 2017

Ilkka Kuusisto composed his opera on Aino Ackté (the first internationally famous Finnish opera singer) already for the centennial of the Finnish National Opera in 2011. However, the National Opera did not approve it to its programme, officially due to poor quality of the libretto. Fortunately the opera was not totally forgotten and it was produced with a revised libretto (revisions made by Martina Roos based on the original libretto of Pentti Savolainen and Juha Kandolin) by South Savo Music Theatre and Opera Society; first three times in Savonlinna and now two more times in sold out Alexander Theatre in Helsinki.

The opera consists – as so many operas based on real life characters – of several fragments of the life of the main character. Even the revised libretto was not that great, but the performance itself had some old-time charm. Costume and set design (designer Anne Peltonen) were made of recycled materials and in my opinion both were quite nice; some of the hats were simply charming.

Ilkka Kuusisto’s music was not very memorable. After the first act the only things I remembered were Gounod’s “Jewel Song” (Ackté’s bravura song) and Finnish folk song “Pai, pai, paitaressu”, neither of which were composed for this opera. Fortunately in the second act there was the song “Ooppera, hyi saatana!” (Opera, ew, hell!), which got the audience clapping enthusiastically and justly so.

The central figure of the opera was, of course, Aino Ackté and Päivi Pylvänäinen, who sang this role. Unfortunately Ackté remained as a person very shallow; a pretty smile and angry kicks did not quite convey the depths of an artistic soul. Her passion for opera also seemed superficial. Not that the other characters were that deep either. Perhaps the fullest performance was given by Anu Ontronen, who sang the roles of both Aino’s mother Emmy Achté and her daughter Glory.