{"id":198103,"date":"2026-04-15T14:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198103\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T14:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:41:07","slug":"the-met-opera-kaija-saariahos-innocence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198103\/","title":{"rendered":"The Met Opera: Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Innocence’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tune in on Saturday, April 18 at 1 p.m. for The Metropolitan Opera\u2019s broadcast of the late Kaija Saariaho<\/a>\u2019s final opera, Innocence. Hailed by Zachary Woolfe<\/a> in The New York Times as Saariaho\u2019s masterpiece, the opera spans nine languages and features an emotionally gripping libretto. WRTI will carry the broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera House, as part of the Met\u2019s Saturday matinee series.<\/p>\n

Innocence\u2019s libretto, written by Finnish author Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barri\u00e8re, follows a wedding which takes place ten years after a tragic school shooting. The bridegroom, whose brother was the shooter, hires a waitress, Tereza, whose daughter was a victim of the shooting. The bride, Stela, must uncover the dark, painful history between Tereza and her in-laws.<\/p>\n

This production\u2019s cast will feature mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato<\/a> and ethno-pop singer Vilma J\u00e4\u00e4 as a grieving mother and the daughter she lost in the shooting, soprano Jacquelyn Stucker and tenor Miles Mykannen as a newlywed couple, and soprano Kathleen Kim and baritone Rod Gilfry as the bridegroom\u2019s parents. The opera will be conducted by Maestro Susanna M\u00e4lkki<\/a>, a close friend and collaborator of Saariaho’s.<\/p>\n

Cast:<\/p>\n

Joyce DiDonato as the Waitress (Tereza)Vilma J\u00e4\u00e4 as Student 1 (Mark\u00e9ta)Jacquelyn Stucker as the Bride (Stela)Miles Mykkanen as the Bridegroom (Tuomas)Kathleen Kim as the Mother-In-Law (Patricia)Rod Gilfry as the Father-In-Law (Henrik)<\/p>\n

Conducted by Susanna M\u00e4lkki<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tune in on Saturday, April 18 at 1 p.m. for The Metropolitan Opera\u2019s broadcast of the late Kaija…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-198103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}