Savonlinna Opera Festival ( fi, Savonlinnan oopperajuhlat) is held annually in the city of

Savonlinna Savonlinna (, , ; sv, Nyslott, lit=New Castle) is a town and a municipality of inhabitants in the southeast of Finland, in the heart of the Saimaa lake region, which is why the city is also nicknamed the "Capital of Saimaa". Together with Mi ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

. The Festival takes place at the medieval

Olavinlinna Olavinlinna (also known as St. Olaf's Castle; sv, Olofsborg; german: Olafsburg; literally ''Olof's Castle'') is a 15th-century three-tower castle located in Savonlinna, Finland. It is built on an island in the Kyrönsalmi strait that connects the ...

(St. Olaf's Castle), built in 1475. The

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

is located amid spectacular lake scenery.

Origin

The birth of the Savonlinna Opera Festival ties in closely with the emerging Finnish identity and striving for independence at the beginning of the 20th century. Attending a nationalist meeting in

Castle in 1907, the Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, already famous at opera houses the world over and an ardent patriot, immediately spotted the potential of the

as the venue for an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

festival. The first opera festival was held in 1912. Aino Ackté directed the festival for five summers, staging four Finnish

s. The only

by a non-Finnish composer was Charles Gounod’s '' Faust'', with Ackté herself in the leading female role of Marguerite. In 1917 the festival ran into difficulties because of

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Finnish Declaration of Independence and the ensuing

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War; . Other designations: Brethren War, Citizen War, Class War, Freedom War, Red Rebellion and Revolution, . According to 1,005 interviews done by the newspaper ''Aamulehti'', the most popular names were as follows: Civil W ...

. For fifty years, the

festival was dormant, but in 1967, Savonlinna Music Days decided to organise an opera course for young singers. The high point of the course was a performance of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

's ''

Fidelio ''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, ...

'' in the castle. Therefore, 1967 is nowadays regarded as the start of the present Festival; since then it has had steady growth of both audience and reputation.

Present-day festival

The Savonlinna Opera Festival has grown into an internationally recognised festival lasting a month. Each year it performs to a total audience of around 60,000, an estimated quarter of whom come from abroad. Each year the Festival has, in addition to staging leading works from classical operatic repertoire, staged its own productions.

Premieres

Thirteen operas have been premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival since 1967: '' The Horseman'' (1975), '' The King Goes Forth to France'' (1984, commissioned jointly by

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

and the BBC), and '' The Palace'' (1995) by Aulis Sallinen, '' The Knife'' (1989) by Paavo Heininen, ''

Aleksis Kivi Aleksis Kivi (; born Alexis Stenvall; 10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, ''Seitsemän veljestä'' ("Seven Brothers") in 1870. He is also known for his 1864 ...

'' (1997) by

Einojuhani Rautavaara Einojuhani Rautavaara (; 9 October 1928 – 27 July 2016) was a Finnish composer of classical music. Among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Rautavaara wrote a great number of works spanning various styles. T ...

, ''

The Age of Dreams ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' (2000–2001) by Herman Rechberger,

Olli Kortekangas Olli Paavo Antero Kortekangas (born 16 May 1955) is a Finnish composer. Kortekangas was born in Turku. His early career in music began at Espoon Musiikkiopisto (Espoo Music Institute) and the youth choir Candomino. He then studied at the Sibe ...

and Kalevi Aho, ''Koirien Kalevala'' (2004) by

Jaakko Kuusisto Jaakko Ilkka Kuusisto (17 January 1974 – 23 February 2022) was a Finnish violinist, composer, and conductor. Education After initial studies under Géza Szilvay and , Kuusisto went on to win the 1989 , place 4th in the International Jean Si ...

, ''Hui kauhistus'' (2006) by Jukka Linkola, ''Isän tyttö'' (2007) by

, ''Seitsemän koiraveljestä'' (2008) by

Markus Fagerudd Markus Simon Fagerudd (born 1 June 1961) is a Finnish composer. Fagerudd was born in Jakobstad, Finland. In the 1980s, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Olli Kortekangas and Kalevi Aho, while working as a music ...

, ''La Fenice'' (2012) by Kimmo Hakola, Norppaooppera (2013) by Timo-Juhani Kyllönen, and ''Linna vedessä'' (2017) by Aulis Sallinen.

Visits by foreign opera companies

For over a decade, the Savonlinna Opera Festival has hosted foreign opera companies: The first of these was the Estonia Theatre from

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

. This was followed for the next three seasons by the world-famous Mariinsky (Kirov) Theatre from St. Petersburg, by

from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1998, the Opéra national du Rhin from

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

in 1999, the

New Israeli Opera The Israeli Opera, formerly known as the New Israeli Opera, is the principal opera company of Israel. It was founded in 1985 after lack of Israeli government funding led to the demise of the Israel National Opera. Since 1994 the Tel Aviv Perform ...

in 2000,

Los Angeles Opera The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center. Leader ...

in 2001, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 2002, and the Choir and Orchestra of the

Municipal Theatre of Santiago The Teatro Municipal, National Opera of Chile is the most important stage theatre and opera house in Santiago, Chile. History and overview The Chilean government ceded a significant parcel of land in downtown Santiago to the municipality, in 184 ...

in 2003, with a staging of Sergio Ortega's ''Fulgor y Muerte de Joaquín Murieta'', after a libretto by

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winner Pablo Neruda. The Welsh National Opera (UK) performed Nabucco and Manon Lescaut at the festival in 2014.

References

External links