Adriana Mater is the second opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by the Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 composer Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by...

, with a libretto in French by her frequent collaborator, Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf , born 25 February 1949 in Beirut, is a Lebanese-born French author. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into many languages. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios...

. The National Opera of Paris and the Finnish National Opera

Finnish National Opera

The Finnish National Opera in Helsinki is the leading opera company in Finland. Its home base is the Opera House on Töölönlahti bay in Töölö which opened in 1993, and is state-owned through Senate Properties...

 jointly commissioned the opera. It received its world premiere at the Opéra Bastille

Opéra Bastille

L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....

 on 3 April 2006 in a production directed by Peter Sellars

Peter Sellars

Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...

. The production was dedicated to Gerard Mortier

Gérard Mortier

Gerard Alfons August, Baron Mortier is a Belgian opera director and administrator of Flemish origin.Mortier has served as general director of La Monnaie and of the Salzburg Festival...

, Artistic Director of the National Opera of Paris.

The opera’s Finnish premiere took place on 23 February 2008 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. The opera received its UK premiere in a concert performance on 24 April 2008and its US premiere took place at the Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe Opera

The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

 on 26 July 2008
with Groop and Freund in their original roles.

Saariaho used memories of her own first pregnancy as part of the inspiration for the opera. Maalouf utilised his memories of being a war correspondent and his awareness of contemporary political and religious conflicts as themes in the opera.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Paris World Premiere Cast, 7 April 2006, (Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:... )	Finnish Premiere Cast, 23 February 2008, (Conductor: Ernest Martínez Izquierdo)
Adriana	mezzo soprano	Patricia Bardon	Monica Groop Monica Groop Monica Groop is a Finnish operatic mezzo-soprano. After graduating from the Sibelius Academy, she joined the Finnish National Opera in 1986 where she remains a member...
Refka, Adriana's sister	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Solveig Kringelborn	Pia Freund
Yonas, Adriana's son	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Gordon Gietz	Tuomas Katajala
Tsargo	bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...	Stephen Milling	Jyrki Korhonen
Chorus

Synopsis

The opera is set in the present day, in a crisis zone in an unnamed country. The story reflects on motherhood. Adriana, her son Yonas and her sister Rafka are caught in the midst of civil war. Years ago, Tsargo, a soldier from their village, raped the young Adriana, and Yonas was born despite Refka’s efforts to prevent her sister having the child. Adriana now anxiously watches Yonas as he grows into a man, and wonders whether he will grow up to be as violent as his father or gentler like his mother.

Critical reactions

"In the TV interview Saariaho named director Sellars as the hero of the performance. Aside from the bitter and violent war events, Sellars has added to the opera a dimension of hope that the conductor herself had not envisaged in the first place.

"One of the principal themes in the opera is the relationship between the main character Adriana and her sister Refka. According to librettist Maalouf, the opera reflects "our world that has gone off the rails" while violent powers are rumbling in the music of the opera, also a poetic level of dream and reverie is present. The intense theme of the work forces the individual to contemplate particularly his or her relationship towards revenge and forgiveness.

"Adriana Mater demonstrates that Kaija Saariaho remains one of the most interesting and imaginative contemporary composers."

External links

• Bill Kenny, "Peter Sellars revisits Adriana Mater in Helsinki: February premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera at the Finnish National Opera", Seen and Heard International on musicweb-international.com, Retrieved 25 February 2008