La passion de Simone in the Tampere Hall, the 10th of March, 2019

I am starting to be quite a Kaija Saariaho fan and now I simply had to travel to Tampere to hear the chamber orchestra version (in the programme it was also called an ensemble version) of her work ”La passion de Simone”. In the programme leaflet it was – in the English text – called an oratorio, the critic of the main Finnish newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat) called it a passion, but the director and the conductor said in the Finnish text of the programme that ”Even though La passion de Simone is not a traditional operatic drama, it still is an opera in the deepest meaning of the word.” Since I felt lots of connections with earlier operas of Saariaho, I decided to call also this performance an opera.

In the opera a young woman imagines a connection with the French philosopher Simone Weil and ponders about her life. She sees in her mind Weil’s life, development of her philosophical thinking and her death.

Saariaho’s music was simply stunning and the chamber orchestra Avanti! and its conductor Clément Mao-Takacs were masterly. It is a rare occasion when the audience is listening to a performance in total silence, but that happened in the Tampere Hall on Sunday evening. I simply couldn’t avoid the thought that everybody was as mesmerized as I. You could not even hear any persistent coughing from the usual spring flus!

Sayuri Araida in the role of the young woman seemed a bit vague in the beginning and already felt some disappointment, but then she suddenly geared up and the enchantment of the opera hit at full force. Her performance was beautifully supported by the quartet of singers: Sandra Darcel (soprano), Marianne Seleskovitch (mezzosoprano), Johan Viaut (tenor) and Romain Dayez (bassbaritone). Saariaho had composed for the quartet lovely music and the singing parts of the composition were unbelievably beautiful as a whole.  

The third success factor of the opera was indubitably the light design by Étienne Exbrayant. It was creative, beautiful and impressive.   

Last time I was impressed by Saariaho’s opera ”Only the Sound remains”, which was performed in the Finnish National Opera. That time I mentioned that you could see the benefits of the long term cooperation of the main persons involved in its production. This time, too, it was easy to see that the people had got used to working together, knew each other and challenged each other to even better results. The cooperation of the singers, the actress Isabelle Seleskovitch, the conductor (and through him the musicians), the director, the light designer and others was so fluent, that the result could only be stellar, especially when it was all based on the fantastic music of Kaija Saariaho. I can hardly wait for her next opera!