The North Star in the Helsinki Music Centre, the 11th of November, 2017

Kokkola Opera Society brought for the first time to stage in Finland Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera The North Star. The opera was performed a few times during the summer in Kokkola Opera Summer and now in the Helsinki Music Centre. This performance proved once again that there exists a vast amount of operatic pearls that are not performed that often and definitely not in Finland anyway. I am sure that I was not the only one in the audience that after the evening had a huge urge to see more operas by Meyerbeer.

The opera tells the love story of Russian tsar Peter and his future wife Catherine. In real life she was from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but in the libretto of this opera she was from Finland, which makes this a great opera to be performed for the first time in Finland during this anniversary year.

The Helsinki Music Centre may not have been the best place for the performance, but if the alternative was not to see it at all in the capital city area, we must be immensely happy. The set design did not really exist except a few ”trees” that were brought to the stage a couple of times to mark Carelian woods (I think). The costume designer was Noora Salmi, who had created costumes that had a touch of epoch in them. Flowers were used as decorations in the hair and the conductor’s stand and they were also tossed to the audience.  

Though the opera is sung in French the whole text was not projected to the screens, but they were used for explaining the main events and key lines like in silent movies. The solution was really good and gave a chance to concentrate more on the performance itself and the music, of course. After all, people often complain that following the text disturbs following the performance.

Meyerbeer’s music was very romantic and the opera had several lovely coloratura parts. This time I have to say that the evening belonged to the ladies. Anu Komsi was excellent in the role of Catherine and ther paper thin high notes enchanted the audience. Anna Palamina in the role of Prascovia was a new acquaintance to me, but she had a gorgeous coloratura voice. Also Johanna Lehesvuori (Nathalie) and Annastiina Tahkola (Ekimona) in their smaller roles sang beautifully. Out of the men the most solid performance was given by Heikki Kilpeläinen in the role of Gritzenko. The highlights of the opera were without doubt Catherine’s and Prascovia’s duet in the first act and Catherine’s aria with two flutes in the third act. They were both unbelievable wonderful.