A staging of Richard Strauss' opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Katie Mitchell. Recorded at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

Ariane à Naxos

The world premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho's opera, "Innocence", at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Finland is the setting but the protagonists come from the four corners of Europe: a Finnish groom and his Romanian bride, a French mother-in-law and a Czech maid. Around them memories unravel in a contemporary tragedy of guilt and lost innocence.

Kaija Saariaho: Innocence

Fable like opera. A woman has a bizarre chance to reverse her son's death: find a truly happy person and the child will be restored. But the people the woman meets, a composer, a collector, an artisan, don't seem happy at all.