It is ten years after a notorious school shooting and a wedding is taking place. We know straight away that there is some connection between the wedding and the shooting – but exactly how the past and present are interlinked is unclear.
Innocence, which has its Australian premiere at Adelaide Festival is the last opera written by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who died in 2023. This blockbuster thriller set in an international school in Helsinki has an original libretto by novelist Sofi Oksanen translated into multiple languages by Aleksi Barrière and is directed by powerhouse Australian film maker, actor director and writer Simon Stone.
Clement Mao-Takacs conducts the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by Adelaide Chamber Singers and State Opera Chorus. Saariaho’s score swirls with tension and menace and gives each character a distinct voice and style – from the shrill perfectionism of the would-be mother in law to the eerie otherworldly resonance of the ghost girl Marketa.
The action takes place on an extraordinary two storey revolving set – allowing us to see several scenes at once. So we see the wedding party – but also the kitchen where the food is prepared. We see the school where the terrible events took place – but in glimpses. There is a corridor, a staircase, a classroom and a toilet.
Stories emerge in flashbacks and in memories. We see children, a teacher. But we are unsure whether the people we see are alive or dead. Did they survive? Is the killer among them?
The bride, who has moved from another country, is the only person who does not know what happened in the past. But each person has their own version of events. Sung in English, Finnish, German, French, Romanian, Spanish, Greek and Czech there are multiple baffling perspectives on the central tragedy.
Whatever emotional truths come to light, it seems at first as if everyone is perpetually trapped in an unfathomable moment of evil. Violence and destruction have captured all the characters in a tortuous cycle of doom and dread. Both the living and the dead must relive the terror again and again and again. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, things begin to shift.
Memories, flashbacks and recriminations bubble to the surface – as we are led slowly and inevitably to a slow motion recreation of the dreadful day. As the world turns we see one scene, then another. The real events reappear out of the fog of memory. Nothing is quite as it seems.
Spectacular, gripping and tense from start to finish, this uncompromising choice of subject matter forces its audience to look long and hard at a real and disturbing aspect of the modern world. As the stage revolves and the characters are tortured by events present, past and future we must ask ourselves: is there any way out of this monstrous dilemma? Can innocence ever be restored?
Adelaide Festival runs from February 28 – March 16
Booking and full programme here:
