Esa-Pekka Salonen to conduct Janácek's opera From the House of the Dead at Helsinki Festival

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The internationally acclaimed Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is to conduct Leos Janácek’s opera From the House of the Dead at this year’s Helsinki Festival on August 21st.
      "The opera will be a concert version at Finlandia Hall, and lighting will be used for dramatization", confirmed Director Risto Nieminen from the Helsinki Festival to Helsingin Sanomat.
      As things stand, the male characters will be played by the Finnish opera singers Esa Ruuttunen, Jorma Silvasti, Mika Kares, Tuomas Katajala, Dan Karlström, Jussi Myllys, and Petri Bäckström. Some of the singers will play several roles, while no singer for the minor female role has been chosen as yet.
      The opera portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp, and the libretto was translated and adapted by the composer from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Memoirs from the House of the Dead.
     
Salonen would like to conduct the opera even at the annual Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, but the contract has not been confirmed as yet.
      "As for Stockholm, the funding is still open", commented Salonen from Los Angeles. However, the singers have been asked to reserve the 23rd of August for potential performances in Stockholm.
      According to preliminary information, Salonen will also conduct the same opera at his Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in the spring of 2009. The performance will be a new production directed by the renowned French opera and theatre director Patrice Chéreau.
      Esa-Pekka Salonen has been the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 1992. In November 2006 it was announced that he would take up the position of principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 2008.
      Salonen was himself also artistic director of the Helsinki Festival in 1995.


Links:
  Esa-Pekka Salonen (Wikipedia)
  Helsinki Festival (full programme to be announced later)

Helsingin Sanomat