Last summer I saw in Iittala the chamber opera ”Surprise Eternal River” (will be performed again in Hämeenlinna in March!) and now a Saaristo-ooppera production of “Written in the Stars” was performed in Finnish National Opera’s Alminsali stage.
It contains scenes of the life of Alma and Toivo Kuula starting from their first meeting and ending in his death. The performance consists of speech and songs of Toivo Kuula. The script of the piece is by Juhani Koivisto, who has also written a book of Alma and Toivo Kuula with the same name. The director was Merja Larivaara.
Before the performance I was thinking, how is it possible to make a balanced act about the life of the couple by using Kuula’s songs, but actually the concept worked beautifully. Somehow the chosen songs fit Alma’s mouth perfectly in different stages of their life.
And Marjukka Tepponen as Alma managed to make superb interpretations of the songs. I have never before hear such a great collection of Kuula’s songs in one performance. Unfortunately the glow of the evening was dimmed a bit, because even though Tepponen’s interpretation was excellent, her singing was not at its best level in the performance. Toivo Kuula’s silent role at the piano was performed by pianist Jukka Nykänen – beautifully as usual.
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