Finally – here is Karita Mattila’s debut at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. She is a cunning sorceress and deep-voiced plotter in Wagner’s opulent Lohengrin. And what a Finnish celebration the evening will be, with Tuomas Katajala, the most internationally successful Finnish tenor of today, singing the title role.
‘Only one Finnish star can fill Olavinlinna alone.’
Helsingin Sanomat about Karita Mattila’s concert, 15 July 2012
Wagner’s mythical work of art is a fairy tale about the relationship between utopia and reality. ‘It is a child’s dream of an intact, reconciled world. The world has dreamed of this hundreds of times and keeps dreaming of it again and again. The work is about this human longing – and the painful realization that it can never come true’, says director Roman Hovenbitzer.
Right from the intense prelude, Lohengrin grips the listener. There’s a rumble of thunder in the castle walls. The music is highly charged, even hypnotic. With Wagner, time loses its meaning. When the secrets are revealed and the performance ends, you walk out of Olavinlinna into the summer night and ask yourself what really happened.
How does the plot of Lohengrin unfold? Read the synopsis here.
