HELSINKI OPERA SUMMER Announced at Aleksanterin teatteri

A festival focusing on new musical theater and chamber opera has been established in Helsinki, which will start in August as the Friends of the Helsinki Festival.
The event, which brings together free-field opera groups, will take place at the Alexander Theater from 19 August to 5 September 2021.

The idea for the Helsinki Opera Summer arose from the cooperation of professional groups in the free opera field, developed and coordinated by opera singer Reetta Ristimäki . The festival was preceded by the Finnish Opera Groups website, which opened in autumn 2020 and includes ten well-established groups. In addition to their own and co-productions, the opera groups collaborate by recycling costumes and props and sharing training and sewing facilities.

The program of the first Helsinki Opera Summer / Helsinki Contemporary Opera Festival includes both premieres and additional performances of works that have already premiered before. There will be seven chamber operas, six of which were written by Finnish composers, a musical theater, a cocktail concert illuminating the history of Finnish opera, and presentations of works. A similar event and an equally extensive review of works and authors has never been organized in Finland before.

Festival performances by opera groups also have tour and export potential for both domestic and foreign festivals, theaters and houses of culture. This has been noticed on the website of the opera groups, which includes a section serving the subscribers of the performances in addition to the Helsinki Opera Summer program. A unified material package is available for all export-ready presentations, which includes e.g. English production description, technical data, presentation video and a link to the full presentation installation.

The artistic director of the Helsinki Opera Summer is Reetta Ristimäki and the event is produced by Greta Tuotanto Oy. The event's information partners and supporters are Music Finland, the Theater Information Center (Tinfo), the central organization of performing arts free groups Theater Center, the Sibelius Academy, MES, the Finnish Musicians 'Association, the Finnish Composers' Association and Fennica Gehrman.

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