Turku Opera
Art Society is this year performing the opera “Viemäreitä ja toimareita” (Sewers
and CEOs) a few times to pretty much sold out audiences in the building of the
Turku Music School.
The opera
tells about the director of the sewage department Tapio Granlund, who gets in
trouble when a leak in the sewers should be localized. The new CEO Kiira Pimiä
seems to have a Teflon coating and engineer Janette Saikku, whose specialty is
localizing leaks, turns out not to have finished her master’s thesis. In the
end the leak is found, the CEO is revealed to be the devil and the arch bishop
Anne Helminen banishes her. So, all’s
well that ends well.
If we start
with the positive things; it is great that local opera societies are excited
about performing operas even though it is hard work. It was easy to sense the
enthusiasm of the performers (well, may not of the rather phlegmatic youth
choir) and a big part of the audience also actively participated in the fun. A
couple of scenes staged with Lego pieces and projected to the screen were quite
nice and even funny. One must also remember that through local opera societies
we often see new operas like this one. This ends the list of positive things.
From
musical point of view, the opera was no masterpiece but relatively easy to sing,
disposable music. The orchestra (four musicians) played in the other end of the
room and so thinly that most of the time I did not pay much attention to them. And
when the rhymes of the libretto (Tapani Tolonen) were as clumsy as possible,
the opera did not really shine. Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid thinking of a village
amateur summer theater, who sings its plays, when I was watching the opera. The
work was full of mocking of neighbouring towns, sewage jokes and half-baked mucking
around, that had absolutely nothing to do with the story.
The voices
of most of the singers were not sufficient for their roles, despite the opera
being rather easy to sing. The main character (Teemu Mustonen) was at least
rather good a singer (at least compared to the others), so that was a positive
thing. Also, the singer of the role of the archbishop Anne Helminen (Kirsti
Tuominen) did a good, though small role.
I am not
sure if the performance had ended up in these premises due to financial
reasons, but the place was not very audience-friendly. When both the seats and
the stage were on the same level, I could only pity the people on the last
rows; I am not sure if they saw anything of the opera. Perhaps partly due to
this, the cameraman (Andy Pilke) projected some parts of the opera to the
screen, but since the picture came from an odd angle, the camera wobbled or the
lighting was weird, it didn’t help much.
The opera
still has a couple of more performance next weekend, so to show you support,
you can go and see it. Tickets are
available at www.lippu.fi.
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