When BBC Music Magazine last year canvassed dozens of international composers about who they thought was the greatest of all time, Kaija Saariaho was their most frequently nominated living colleague. She was ranked at No 17, just between Brahms and Haydn. The esteem in which the Finnish composer, now 70, is held helps explain the anticipation around her latest opera, Innocence, as it reaches the Royal Opera House in Simon Stone’s production next week.
So do the reactions of many of those who saw its premiere at the Aix-en-Provence festival in summer 2021 – and those who performed in it. “I’m absolutely sure that this is one of the most important works of our time,” says Susanna Mälkki, who conducted that premiere with the London Symphony Orchestra in the pit, and is in London to conduct the Covent Garden dates. She has lived with the work for three years now, as Covid forced the last-minute postponement of the originally scheduled premiere. That first summer of rehearsals was an intense time, she says – not only because of the pandemic backdrop but also because of the subject matter of the opera.
