Flash Flash in the Espoo City Theatre, the 7th of May, 2019

The opera ”Flash flash – two deaths of Andy Warhol” composed by Juhani Nuorvala was finished  already ten years ago, but it got its first performance only this February in the Helsinki Music Center. Unfortunately one of the performers got sick after the opening night and all the other performances were postponed to May in Espoo City Theatre. The opera tells about the life of Andy Warhol from childhood to his death (and kind of after it). The libretto is by Juha Siltala.  

I didn’t quite know what to expect of this opera based on the reviews I read after the opening night, but I fell in love with it. I liked Nuorvala’s music, which in addition to the theme that went through the whole opera also contained enough twists to keep up the interest till the end. The orchestra Nyky Ensemble played well and combined to various electronic thingies they created a superb sound environment.  

The libretto may not have been the easiest in the world, but gradually the story took you over and over two hours without intermission did not feel that long at all. I really liked the direction of Erik Söderblom. The stage was empty a lot of the time, but everything that came and went on it was for a reason. The screens on the backgroud were justified and above all the video and light design by Teo Lanerva was magnificient and made the opera. Excellent production.

The performance also had some extra features that may not have been strictly speaking necessary, but they brought a little something extra to the evening. First of all the audience was given masks that were supposed to be worn in the beginning of the opera. I didn’t quite understand why and at least on Tuesday evening most of the audience seemed to use the masks as fans, but at least you could get a nice selfie with the mask. The second extra thing was purely technical. Even though it was unusually easy to hear clearly the English text of the opera, especially for those whose English is not so strong, there was, in addition to the texting available on both sides of the stage (which you could not always see due to smoke), also a texting possibility to your own mobile phone via the Espoo City Theatre App. I tested it and it was great! It was easy to check from your phone if you could not hear some part of the text. The third nice detail was that the stage hands, who were from the School of performing arts in Espoo, handed out free cans of Coca Cola Zero during a lull in the opera. I am not even a friend of that drink, but it suited an opera about Andy Warhol.  

But what is an opera without singers! The choosing of singers for this opera had been done extremely well and all the soloists left a mainly positive impression. But personally I would like to especially mention two soloists separately. David Hackston as A was magnificent! I have heard him before in several productions and I have always liked him, but in this opera he had a chance to truly shine. So enjoyable! And my second favourite was naturally Tuuli Lindeberg. I have raved about her voice before and in this opera her performance was pitch perfect.

In addition to the singers the dancer Ari Kauppila as F was divine. His step dance number in the end of the opera, where the taps were like one of the instruments playing the music, was unbelievable.   

I would not recommend this opera to those people who only like the biggest opera classics, but to everybody else this is a must see. Even if you don’t like everything about the opera, I am sure that you will find some things that you will thoroughly enjoy, so the opera is definitely worth seeing. There are still two performances left and tickets are available at www.lippu.fi.