Opera & theatre
A musical theatre production based on the music of the late and legendary Finnish singer Kirka. From Saturday night dances in a long-disappeared rural Finland to the back seat of a broken down Lada, the piece by Kotka City theatre is a fast-moving yet poignant trip through decades past.
Helsinki Skaala Opera’s Turing Machine weaves together soaring, emotionally charged vocal lines with atmospheric ambient soundscapes and sampled electronic rhythms. The intimate and intense opera for two singers and one dancer is set off by stunning 3D graphics – a visual element ultimately based on the innovations of Alan Turing himself.
Skaala Opera Helsinki's latest production brings together Philip Glass' rarely performed chamber work A Madrigal Opera and poet Lauri Otonkoski's symphonic poem Cameo. The themes of the work include searching for and finding oneself, traveling, as well as curiosity, fear and greed. What does it mean to be adrift in the midst of life?
A contemporary pop opera based on the infamous Manson Family murders of 1969, which turned the Flower Power dream of peace and love into a blood-soaked nightmare. Helsinki Skaala Opera's production of John Moran's experimental work explores the tragedy, its motives and media circus aftermath through a blend of acoustic and electronic music, aria, monologue, theatre and dance movement.
"Does the condemned know his sentence?"
"No. There would be no point in telling him. He'll learn it on his body."
Philip Glass's dance opera, based on the novel by Jean Cocteau, is a story of Paul and Lise, two siblings who live isolated in their room, playing their private Game in an world of fantasies. As the children fluctuate between consuming adoration and jealous hatred for each other, their increasingly twisted Game eventually leads to tragedy when confronted with the outside world of adulthood.
A complex web of people caught up in the relentless flow of events in the contemporary world, all seeking to break through their own isolation, struggling for contact like two Soviet cosmonauts stranded far above their long-dissolved nation.
A multi-layered exploration of love, faith and the corruption of power, as seen through the story of Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. In August 2002, the piece was presented as a guest performance at the Tampere Theatre festival.