Light. That was, quite fittingly, my first thought when arriving to the opening night of the new Finnish chamber opera at Borgvik of the Lux Musicae –festival in Siuntio, since both the intersections leading to Borgvik and the yard were decorated with living lights. In the dark November evening the sight was impressive and tuned the audience to the opera to come.
This year the theme of the festival has been “Life of poets” and when the secondary title of the opera was “the Aleksis Kivi –opera” (AK is a well-known Finnish author and poet), I think most of people were assuming the opera would tell about the life of Aleksis Kivi. But the librettist Johanna Venho had made a different decision: opera’s background is Kivi’s poem Lintukoto (=”safe haven”) and the theme was refugees. "Over the black water" tells about a man and a woman, who leave their home and literally throw their house key over the board to the sea when starting their trip across the sea towards their dream of a better future. The opera consists of four parts: Ship of Clouds, Dream, Storm and Safe Haven, during which they experience the sorrow of leaving their home, dreams of a brighter future and their fears. The end is left the spectator’s imagination, so we were not told if they ever reached their destination or did they perish on the way.
The opera is composed by Lauri Kilpiö. I was looking forward to hearing he music, since I did not know the composer. I did not become his greatest fan during the evening, but the opera did contain some interesting parts even to such a modern music ignorant as me.
The role of the woman was sung by Tuuli Lindeberg and of the man by Jussi Lehtipuu. Tuuli Lindeberg is one of my favourite singers and Kilpiö had composed to her insanely difficult music. Some tunes were so unusual that I was wondering how is it possible to even remember them.
This time my biggest favourite was the cellist Markus Hohti. My seat was ideally situated to follow his technique and at times I noticed that I was looking at his playing more than the singers. Cello truly is a very versatile instrument and Hohti’s brilliant work was a pleasure to look at.
The visualisation and direction of the opera was by Raija Malko. She had been inspired in her work by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin’s painting The Isle of the Dead. The stage setting was as successful as it could be taking into account the limited stage space at Borgvik. Though I do have to say that the bright pink construction in the middle was a bit unusual a colour choice. I also liked the video projections, especially when they moved. Thanks to Jarkko Forsman’s innovative lights, the whole visual experience was positive.
So the opera was definitely worth a trip to Siuntio and the evening was crowned by the light salad supper offered to the opening night audience after the opera.
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| Jussi Lehtipuu and Tuuli Lindeberg |
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| Emil Holmström, Markus Hohti, Antti Ohenoja and Mikko Raasakka |
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