If Kaija Saariaho’s four previous operas have had one thing in common, it has been their refusal to settle for obvious dramatic impact, or to favour theatrical effect over musical intensity. From her very first stage work, L’Amour de Loin, it has been the beauty of the scores, the iridescent instrumental colours with which she surrounds and clothes her vocal lines, that have seemed more important than the narrative they are supporting.
Innocence, which has arrived at Covent Garden almost two years after its world premiere in Aix-en-Provence, promised to be different: there’s more than enough emotional potential in the story to fuel the most involving of music dramas. Sofi Oksanen’s original Finnish libretto, given a multilingual makeover by Aleksi Barrière, is set in contemporary Finland and deals with the aftermath of a school shooting in which 10 students and their teacher were killed. Tereza, a waitress at a wedding reception, recognises the groom (Tuomas) as the brother of the boy who 10 years earlier had committed the atrocity in which her daughter, Markéta, was one of the victims.
