Jukka Linkola’s opera ”The Silent inherit the Land” was supposed to be performed for the first time already in 2020 in the Ilmajoki Music Festival, but because of Covid it was postponed twice. The opera tells about the time in the Finnish history (1929-1932), when a political movement called “Lapuanliike”, tried to root out communism in Finland by any means including violence. The story is wrapped around a few main characters: a former red prisoner Olavi Miekka (the role was to be sung by Ville Rusanen, but he had fallen ill and it was sung from the side by baritone Tuomas Lehtinen and acted on the stage by actor Jussi Jätinvuori from the Seinäjoki City Theatre) and Regina Holberg (soprano Sanna Iljin), who was the daughter of the local police officer. In addition to them, one of the main characters was the head of the movement Vihtori Kosola, played by actor Taneli Mäkelä. And the third main story line was the story of young Penjaami Turakka, who was born in a blue-collar family but joined this right-wing movement (Akseli Ferrand). So, in the opera Miekka and Holberg fall in love and get married. Holberg learns to – at least – understand her husband’s political views, but in the end of the opera she is shot to death in a skirmish between the two opposing sides. Turakka, on the other hand, shoots his own father to death half by accident and then hangs himself out of guilty conscience. And in the middle of all this Vihtori Kosola leads the movement and agitates the people against each other.
The Ilmajoki outdoor stage by the river is at least on a
beautiful summer day a really nice place to listen to an opera. Marjatta
Kuivasto’s set design was inspirational: high walls and stairs were used in a
very inventive way and I especially liked the little houses that symbolized the
places were the scenes happened. The
opera itself was not that special. At times it was touching and current
e.g. when it handled the raising of people against each other, but there were
also a lot of things that could have easily been left out without the opera
losing anything by it. One example could be the extremely cliché character of
Minna Craucher (sung by Mari Palo).
On the other hand, the opera had its merits. I think one of
the finest moments was the beautiful aria of Iivari Viljanen (tenor Ilkka Hämäläinen),
that was sung just before he was shot to death by his own son. Till then
Hämäläinen had not been very impressive, but this aria was a bull’s eye both
vocally and as a performance.
However, in my opinion the star of the opera was Essi
Luttinen, who sung the role of the teacher Hilja Riipinen. Beautiful singing
and excellent performance.
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