Not another Finnish opera! It's the significantly less popular sequel to Not Another Teen Movie! I wouldn't have known about Sallinen except that there was an "other DVDs available from Ooppera" insert in the Aleksis Kivi disc. But it has a certain amount of cachet: it's been performed internationally, including, in 1983, at the Metropolitan Opera. So what do we got here?
It's based on a novel by Ilmari Kianto, whose work has never been translated into English, so we must make do with the opera. For whatever it's worth, according to the DVD sleeve notes, the libretto here (by Sallinen himself) is better than the novel. It takes place in northern Finland in 1907, the year parliamentary elections were first held, and concerns a peasant couple, Topi and Riika, who live in grinding poverty with their three small children. Going to town, Topi happens upon a socialist meeting, along with the suggestion that their lives don't have to be what they are. The priests urge quietism, but clearly something is happening. The socialist organizers tell everyone to vote for them (which you do by writing--wait for it--a red line). The election happens, but after that, and before the results are tallied, Topi has to go to work at a logging camp (less fun than a summer camp), and while he's gone, all three children die from malnutrition. Jeez. He comes back, the socialists declare victory, but too late. Topi goes to fight a bear that's been seen in the area and dies. The end.
Now, you would be quite justified in thinking "...and then he was killed by a bear" is a bit of a bathetic ending. And sure, I can say "the bear is a metaphor!"--as bears killing people generally are--but a metaphor for what, exactly? It's very hard to place this opera ideologically. Yes, the priests urging everyone to just be happy eating shit aren't sympathetic, but is the opposition actually going to help? It's unclear. But it's hard to really blame anyone other than the system for what happens to the family. You would think that this conclusion would be some sort of comment about socialism, but it doesn't really seem to be, as no such thing has been instituted yet. Ultimately, I think it really boils down to the message of a lot of operatic tragedies: shit happens. Life's a bitch and then you're killed by a bear.
Anyway, be that as it may, this is actually a very powerful opera--definitely the best I've seen in Finnish, and not by a small margin. The jagged, neo-romantic music allows for a lot of good arias and dramatic moments, and regardless of the political implications, the story is effectively tragic. It doesn't hurt that Jorma Hynninen and Päivi Nisula are so great as, respectively, Topi and Riika (Hynninen also played the lead in Aleksis Kivi--I guess when you're a Finnish singer with an international reputation, you can probably more or less take your pick of roles in Finnish operas). They do a great job conveying the characters' desperation, leavened with moments of awkward tenderness. One of the most memorable parts of the opera, actually, is them after their children have died, just silently sitting on a bench, contemplating their sorrows. It's not a big sturm-und-drang-type opera, but it's highly effective as its own thing.
I leave you with this: there's one (1) lighter scene in the opera, which doesn't have much to do with anything but still is charming; apparently it's taken from an unrelated short story by Kianto. In the first act, Riika's alone with the kids when a peddler named Simana, who had been working in Sweden, comes by just, I guess, to visit. The kids pepper him with childish, unanswerable questions, and he responds with one of those question-and-answer folk songs, like "False Knight on the Road." I thought it was memorable enough that I uploaded it to youtube, and here it is. Just don't ask me what those dancers who look they're meant to be zombies are doing; they appear somewhat puzzlingly throughout the otherwise-realistic production.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. I had no expectations going in, but now I'm extremely interested in seeing more of Sallinen's work.
No comments:
Post a Comment