Savonlinna Opera Festival
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Savonlinna Opera Festival (Finnish: Savonlinnan oopperajuhlat) is held annually in the city of Savonlinna in Finland. The Festival takes place at the medieval Olavinlinna (St. Olaf's Castle), built in 1475. The castle 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 Olavinlinna 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 castle as the venue for an opera festival.
The first opera festival was held in 1912.[1] Aino Ackté directed the festival for five summers, staging four Finnish operas. The only opera 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
For fifty years, the opera 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's Fidelio 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:
Visits by foreign opera companies
For over a decade, the Savonlinna Opera Festival has hosted foreign opera companies: The first of these was the
See also
References
- ISBN 978-1-74104-771-4. Retrieved 10 October 2010.
External links
- Media related to Savonlinna Opera Festival at Wikimedia Commons
- Savonlinna Opera Festival