Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Innocence’ Heads to the Met Opera

Kaija Saariaho’s opera Innocence, first staged at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2021 and widely called a masterpiece, will be presented at the Metropolitan Opera beginning April 6. Its premiere at the Grand Théâtre de Provence drew resounding cheers and immediate admiration for its music, text, direction and performance.

Saariaho conceived the work as a multilingual fresco about a shooting at an international school, collaborating with librettist Sofi Oksanen and her son Aleksi Barrière. Susanna Mälkki conducted the premiere and Simon Stone directed a production that uses the school’s architecture as a shifting, boxlike stage to move fluidly among timelines.

After Saariaho’s death in 2023, the opera has traveled widely with many of the original collaborators, who have worked to transmit her sound and approach. Simon Stone said, “It kind of just keeps getting better.” Aleksi Barrière now helps oversee her stage works, while artists such as Mälkki and soprano Lucy Shelton offer guidance to new casts.

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