The King of Lydia and Väinämöinen's Proposal in The Finnish National Opera's Alminsali stage, the 29th of September, 2017

Väinö Raitio’s operas haven’t been performed for decades and now, within a couple of months, we have had a chance to see three of them. Taite Ry and Avanti! brought two of his operas to the Finnish National Opera’s Alminsali stage: “The King of Lydia” and “Väinämöinen’s Proposal”. After Princess Cecilia, which was played in the Helsinki Music Centre in August, I was looking forward to an interesting musical evening and that it was. The name of the production was “Neijonnälkä” (Hunger for a Maiden), which actually described both the operas rather well, because the key idea of both of them was lust. In “The King of Lydia” the king wanted his warlord to see his queen naked and when the warlord was caught by the queen, she seduced him to kill the king and become the king himself. The story of Väinämöinen is well-known to all Finns from our national epic ”Kalevala”: an old man wants to have a young girl, though in this version, she manages to run away. Librettos of both of the operas were written by Eino Leino – originally to plays. The conductor Tuomas Hannikainen had made the orchestration of both the operas. Originally “The King of Lydia” had a much larger orchestra and “Väinämöinen’s Proposal” only a piano score.

Together with the operas Avanti! played also fragments from two other works of Raitio: “Asaria” and “Syrup factory in Kruununhaka”. Their music functioned perfectly as an overture of the operas and as a glue between them. When the evening started by a fragment from “Asaria”, its oriental-style tunes kind of lead the audience to the exotic Lydia. The text in the texting machine was also used to clarify the story.

Out of these two operas I enjoyed ”The King of Lydia” more. The opera, including its set design, was rather dramatic and Annami Hylkilä on the role of the queen had a chance to really let it go. And the music itself was fascinating.

Väinämöinen’s Proposal” was more Kalevala-like. The role of Aino was again sung by Annami Hylkilä and you really could not have recognized her as the queen of the previous opera based on looks only.