Finnish National Opera

Last updated
Finnish National opera
Suomen kansallisooppera
Finlands Nationalopera

Finnish National Opera Helsinki 2016 02.jpg

Opera House, Helsinki
General information
Type Culture
Location Helsinki, Finland
Coordinates 60°10′54″N024°55′47″E / 60.18167°N 24.92972°E / 60.18167; 24.92972 Coordinates: 60°10′54″N024°55′47″E / 60.18167°N 24.92972°E / 60.18167; 24.92972
Completed 1993

The Finnish National Opera (Finnish : Suomen Kansallisooppera; Swedish : Finlands Nationalopera) is a Finnish opera company based in Helsinki. Its home base is the Opera House on Töölönlahti bay in Töölö, which opened in 1993, and is state-owned through Senate Properties. The Opera House features two auditoriums, the main auditorium with 1,350, seats and a smaller studio auditorium with 300-500 seats.

Finnish language language arising and mostly spoken in Finland

Finnish is a Finnic language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland ; Finnish is also an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both Standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a dialect of Finnish, is spoken in Northern Norway by a minority group of Finnish descent.

Swedish language North Germanic language spoken in Sweden

Swedish is a North Germanic language spoken natively by 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden, and in parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to some extent with Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Both Norwegian and Danish are generally easier for Swedish speakers to read than to listen to because of difference in accent and tone when speaking. Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It has the most speakers of the North Germanic languages.

Opera house theatre building used for opera performances

An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building.

Contents

History

Regular opera performances began in Finland in 1873 with the founding of the Finnish Opera by Kaarlo Bergbom. Prior to that, opera had been performed in Finland sporadically by touring companies, and on occasion by Finnish amateurs, the first such production being The Barber of Seville in 1849. However, the Finnish Opera company soon plunged into a financial crisis and folded in 1879. During its six years of operation, Bergbom’s opera company had given 450 performances of a total of 26 operas, and the company had managed to demonstrate that opera can be sung in Finnish too. After the disbandment of the Finnish Opera, the opera audiences of Helsinki had to confine themselves to performances of visiting opera companies and occasional opera productions at the Finnish National Theatre.

Kaarlo Bergbom Finnish theatre director

Kaarlo Bergbom was a Finnish theatre director. He was the founder of the Finnish National Theatre, the first Finnish language theatre company. Though he wrote very little as a playwright, he was responsible for introducing a number of important Finnish dramatists, particularly Minna Canth, and Finnish translations of William Shakespeare and other foreign writers. Bergbom also founded the magazine Kirjallinen Kuukausilehti.

<i>The Barber of Seville</i> 1816 opera by Gioachino Rossini

The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775). The première of Rossini's opera took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli.

Finnish National Theatre theatre in Helsinki, Finland

The Finnish National Theatre, established in 1872, is a theatre located in central Helsinki on the northern side of the Helsinki Central Railway Station Square. The Finnish National Theatre is the oldest Finnish speaking professional theatre in Finland. It was known as the Finnish Theatre until 1902, when it was renamed the Finnish National Theatre.

The reincarnation of the Finnish opera institution took place about 30 years later. A group of notable social and cultural figures, led by the international star soprano Aino Ackté, founded the Domestic Opera in 1911. From the very beginning, the opera decided to engage both foreign and Finnish artists. A few years later the Domestic Opera was renamed the Finnish Opera in 1914. In 1956, the Finnish Opera was, in turn, taken over by the Foundation of the Finnish National Opera, and acquired its present name.

A soprano[soˈpraːno] is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) =880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) =1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano.

Aino Ackté Finnish soprano

Aino Ackté was a Finnish soprano. She was the first international star of the Finnish opera scene after Alma Fohström, and a groundbreaker for the domestic field.

Between 1918 and 1993 the home of the opera was the Alexander Theater, which had been assigned to the company on a permanent basis. The home was inaugurated with an opening performance of Verdi’s Aida . When the first dedicated opera house in Finland was finally completed and inaugurated in 1993, the old opera house was given back its original name, the Alexander Theater, after the Tsar Alexander II.

Giuseppe Verdi 19th-century Italian opera composer

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian opera composer. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, and developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Gioachino Rossini, whose works significantly influenced him. By his 30s, he had become one of the pre-eminent opera composers in history.

Tsar title given to a male monarch in Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia

Tsar, also spelled czar, or tzar, is a title used to designate East and South Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers of Eastern Europe, originally Bulgarian monarchs from 10th century onwards. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism. The term is derived from the Latin word Caesar, which was intended to mean "Emperor" in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official —but was usually considered by western Europeans to be equivalent to king, or to be somewhat in between a royal and imperial rank.

Alexander II of Russia Emperor of Russia

Alexander II was the Emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination on 13 March 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland.

Personnel

The Finnish National Opera has some 30 permanently engaged solo singers, a professional choir of 60 singers and its own orchestra of 120 members. The Ballet has 90 dancers from 17 countries. All together, the opera has a staff of 735.

Past music directors and chief conductors have included Armas Järnefelt (1932–36), Tauno Pylkkänen (1960-1967), Okko Kamu (1996–2000), Muhai Tang (2003–2006), [1] and Mikko Franck (2006-2013). With the 2013-2014 season, the Finnish mezzo-soprano Lilli Paasikivi became artistic director of the company, and the German conductor Michael Güttler became principal conductor with the company. The initial contracts for both Paasikivi and Güttler are for 3 years. [2] Since 2008, Kenneth Greve has served as artistic director of Finnish National Ballet. His current contract is through 2018. [3]

Armas Järnefelt Finnish composer and conductor

Edvard Armas Järnefelt, was a Finnish conductor and composer, who achieved some minor success with his orchestral works Berceuse and Praeludium. He spent much of his conducting career at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, Sweden.

Tauno Pylkkänen Finnish composer

Tauno Kullervo Pylkkänen was a Finnish composer.

Okko Kamu Finnish conductor and violinist

Okko Tapani Kamu is a Finnish orchestral conductor and violinist.

Productions

The Finnish National Opera stages four to six premieres a year, including a world premiere of at least one Finnish opera, such as Rasputin by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Some 20 different operas in 140 performances are found in the opera's schedule yearly. The Ballet arranges some 110 performances annually. The Finnish National Opera has some 250,000 visitors a year.

Einojuhani Rautavaara Finnish composer (1928–2016)

Einojuhani Rautavaara was a Finnish composer of classical music. He is among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957).

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References

  1. ↑ Vesa Sirén (28 May 2002). "Muhai Tang the unanimous choice at National Opera". Helsingin Sanomat. Archived from the original on 27 June 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
  2. ↑ "Eight premieres at the Finnish National Opera in the 2013–2014 season" (Press release). Finnish National Opera. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
  3. ↑ "Kenneth Greve to continue as Artistic Director of the Finnish National Ballet until 2018" (Press release). Finnish National Opera. 1 March 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
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