After the Fall

In her haunting final opera, the late, great Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho confronts the senseless violence of our modern age by delving into one of its most monstrous phenomena. Depicting the wide web of trauma left in the wake of a school shooting, Innocence charts the rippling aftershocks of tragedy and the long road to recovery for those left behind. The piercing new work premieres at the Met April 6 in a cinematic staging by director Simon Stone, conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

In 2016, Kaija Saariaho made her Met debut with her first opera, L’Amour de Loin, a meditative and stylized retelling of the life and love of a 12th-century troubadour. A work of quiet grandeur, it introduced Met audiences to the Finnish composer’s unique voice through music both alluring and profound, beautiful on the surface yet charged with deeper meaning, like the finest poetry. In Innocence—her final opera and one of the last largescale compositions she completed before her death in 2023—Saariaho brings the same sophisticated style and intensity of feeling to bear on a much darker subject, to devastating effect.

Innocence revolves around a mass shooting at an international school in Helsinki, but rather than dwell on the horrific event itself, the opera explores its anticipation and aftermath, alternating between remembrances of the tragedy and, some ten years later, a wedding that unexpectedly brings the mother of one of the victims face to face with the family of the perpetrator. A raw and unflinching cri de coeur, Innocence asks many uncomfortable questions about a civilization in which the inconceivable happens repeatedly, and to what degree the guilt is shared by all. But the opera is also a work of, and about, catharsis. “What is important here is the wide range of the varied consequences of one violent act,” Saariaho wrote in a note about her inspiration for Innocence. “How do we react to unexpected tragedies in our lives, how does our destiny stigmatize us, and how can we overcome a trauma?” Ultimately, Innocence is a journey from blame to empathy.

With its eerie, darkly beautiful sound-world and diverse vocal styles, ranging from traditional opera to expressionistic speak-singing to Scandinavian folk music, and libretto by prominent Finnish author Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, Innocence was greeted upon its 2021 premiere at the Aix-en-Provence Festival by awestruck reviews and hailed as “completely exhilarating” (The New York Times), “a modern masterpiece” (The Telegraph). It arrives at the Met this season in the vividly realistic original production by Simon Stone, who returns to the company following his innovative modern-day take on Lucia di Lammermoor in 2022. With scenery designed by Chloe Lamford, Stone sets the action in a single two-story building that rotates on a turntable to reveal various rooms, alternately serving as the restaurant where the wedding takes place and the school where the tragedy occurred— as well as empty spaces populated only by characters and their memories. The cast is anchored by always-enthralling mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Finnish ethno-pop singer Vilma Jää as the grieving mother and the daughter she lost in the shooting, as well as soprano Jacquelyn Stucker and tenor Miles Mykkanen as the young couple whose wedding uncovers buried secrets and reopens old wounds. On the podium is Finnish maestro Susanna Mälkki, who conducted the world premiere and was for many years a close friend and collaborator of Saariaho’s.

Below, Maestro Mälkki (pictured below, with Saariaho) shares her perspective on the long gestation of Innocence, her memories of the first rehearsals and performances, and her thoughts about the captivating music and emotional power of what she calls “one of the most important works of our time.”

When Kaija told me almost 15 years ago that she had, against her own firm intentions, decided to write yet another opera, she was very clear about the reason: It was necessary to tell this particular story. The choice of Sofi Oksanen to write the libretto sounded to me like a fantastic and bold move. And even though my own collaboration with Kaija already dated back some ten years by that time (I had conducted several of her works, including world premieres such as La Passion de Simone in Vienna in 2006), I was deeply honored by her wish to include me in the team from the start, and for me to conduct the world premiere. Consequently, she kept me in the loop during the development of the piece over the years and gave me the text to read before there was any music on paper. We spoke about the ideas as they grew and discussed casting and many other elements. It was a unique privilege in every way, and the first part of my own journey with the opera culminated on the unforgettable day many years later when I could finally open and read the full score. I was as if I were hit by a flash. The idea of an opera like a human “fresco” organized around a tragic event was fascinating—loosely referring to Leonardo’s The Last Supper, which presents one intense moment where the past, present, and future are captured in a moment around a table shared by 13 figures (the same number of characters in Innocence)—but little did I know in the early years of the project how deep an impact this work would later have on all of us.

Those who saw L’Amour de Loin at the Met in 2016 surely remember the touching medieval story of two distant lovers, set within Kaija’s magical sound world. That was her very first opera, which had premiered in 2000—immediately a masterpiece that moved audiences deeply worldwide. More than 20 years later, Innocence was, sadly, the very last one. It is very different yet similar in essence, offering a deeply personal and truth-seeking look inwards, and a powerful message with its protagonists’ lives intertwined. The story of Innocence does not take place in the distant past but rather in our own time, and it is very realistic—painfully so—and could describe anyone’s life today. The backstory (referred to by the protagonists as “the tragedy”) is, alas, familiar from the news, but the real story happens afterward, when the characters’ lives are altered and everyone has to deal with the different consequences, distressing speculations, and emotions. Nothing will ever be the same for anyone, not even for those who are not intimately concerned. The events unfold in a spiral-like manner, alternating between the ”now” and the ”then,” and we are pulled into an ever-thickening world of secrets as everyone carries on as well as they are able.

Sofi’s writing is very direct. Her language always has a laser-like precision, and her style is at the same time poetic and factual. The way she tells the story is both compassionate and objective. I feel that all this, combined with the fact that the libretto was originally written in Finnish, Kaija’s mother tongue, may have unlocked a new means of expression in her way of writing. The outcome is astonishing, full of new kinds of music, although we of course recognize the mature style of the composer. The several languages used in the opera for the characters’ different nationalities—in the final multilingual libretto translated from Sofi’s Finnish by Aleksi Barrière— are also all equally carefully studied, so that the vocal lines respect the intonation and rhythm of each language, which adds even more character to the music. Vocally speaking, there are many mind-blowing elements. The human voice is used in multiple ways: There are parts sung with a traditional operatic voice (in several different intensities, as in the great tradition), sung with a child’s voice, sung according to an archaic folk tradition (a radical choice!), half-sung (a bit like Sprechgesang), rhythmically spoken, freely spoken ... all of these styles representing the different psychological facets of one person or the different personalities of the different characters, as in a fresco. In addition, each voice naturally has a different pulse, orchestral color, and temperature. And finally, the multiple languages underline the international nature of our world and of the topic—the tragedy—which is now a real-life global psycho-epidemic.

Why does this work still move me so deeply, even when I just think about it? The score reveals the reason: Through the music, we feel that Kaija had a deep empathy and compassion for every single one of the 13 characters. They all relate to what happened from their own perspective, and none of them is treated as secondary. The spectrum is heart-stopping, and the suffering or the guilt is not only on one side of the events. I can feel that every single line, spoken or sung, was lived by Kaija herself.

The work has been described as a thriller, which is not false, since the storytelling spiral gets tighter and tighter until an unexpected truth is revealed, and “then” finally becomes one with ”now.” But to quote Kaija’s own words, “Under its disguise of a thriller, Innocence is a story about recovery and healing: a large fresco of the human mind.” Simon Stone’s production is fantastic and totally in line with both the libretto’s quick tempo and the music’s constant rotation between the different situations.

This work didn’t have an easy birth. Originally commissioned many years before its eventual premiere, it became homeless for financial reasons until finally rescued by the Aix-en-Provence Festival. The next torment came from the pandemic, which threatened and ultimately postponed the scheduled unveiling. In the summer of 2020, we were somehow miraculously rehearsing anyway, masked, everyone in a very particular state of mind since we had all been under lockdown for several months—in other words, happy to be back together but frankly in quite a fragile state. And then this monumental work hit us right in the heart. I had been deeply moved— blown away, in fact—by it from the very first reading of the score, but working on it with everyone in person was even more intense, and the events came more and more to life when expressed by the voices. I thought that at least the following year, when the premiere finally took place, I wouldn’t need to be in tears anymore, but I was wrong. And, of course, above all this like a dark cloud, there was Kaija’s very serious illness, which she wanted to keep secret. And then there was the triumph of the work, combined with the devastating reality of the story it tells …

Innocence is the work of our epoch, both heartbreaking but also healing. It is a devastatingly sad story, but Kaija wanted there to be light at the end. We finally have to process, accept, and continue to live our lives, and the future can be brighter if we let events change us.

—Susanna Mälkki