The birth of the Savonlinna Opera Festival ties in closely with the emerging Finnish identity and striving for independence at the beginning of the 20th century. On visiting a nationalistic meeting in Olavinlinna in 1907, the Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, already famous at opera houses the world over and an ardent patriot, immediately spotted the potential of the medieval castle built in 1475 as the venue for anopera festival. This romantic castle set amid lake scenery of "supernatural" beauty could not, in her opinion, fail to impress all who beheld it and was thus the perfect stage for presenting the budding Finnish music just bursting into flower.

The first opera festival was held in summer 1912. Aino Ackté did as she had promised and turned the castle into a stronghold of Finnish operatic art. During the five summers she was able to arrange her festival, she staged four Finnish operas inthe castle.

The only opera by a non-Finnish composer was Gounod’s Faust, with Ackté herself excelling in the leading female role of Marguerite. Her magnificent plans were, however, soon dashed by the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Finland’s Civil War and the ensuing economic difficulties, but news of the festival had already reached opera lovers in other parts of the world.

The opera festival tradition then lay dormant for close on four decades. Meanwhile summer events and song festivals were, indeed, being held in Savonlinna, for the town has always been a lively tourist resort. By the late 1880s its spa was already popular with wealthy patrons from St. Petersburg in particular, who came totake its health-giving cures. This was the start of a tradition that continues to this day. Its beautiful location on a series of islands and the many other nearby attractions (such as the narrow Punkaharju esker snakingits way across the lakes) have made Savonlinna one of the most popular summer tourist resorts in all Finland. Yet the little community of just under 30,000 inhabitants founded in 1639 has lost none of its idyllic character.

The opera festival came to life again in 1967, when the Savonlinna Music Days operating in the town for adecade or more decided to arrange an opera course for young singers. The leader of the course hit upon the idea of staging Beethoven’s Fidelio in the castle courtyard. The performance was a tremendous success, its cast including singers of international repute in addition to the students, and the present festivalis regarded as dating from 16 July 1967.

Over the years the Savonlinna Opera Festival has grown from a one-week event into an international festival lasting a month. Each year it performs to a total audience of around 60,000, an estimated quarter of whom come from abroad. Savonlinna has become a byword among opera lovers throughout the world. Back in the 1970s its artistic standard was already calling forth widespread interest and admiration, due greatly to the uncompromising efforts of its Artistic Director, the world-famous bass singer Martti Talvela, to achieve the same objective as Aino Ackté in her day: to place Savonlinna on an artistic par with the great European festivals while presenting the world with Finnish opera at its very best.

Six works have been premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival since 1967: Aulis Sallinen’s The Horseman (1975) and The King Goes Forth to France (1984, commissioned jointly by Covent Garden and the BBC), Paavo Heininen’s The Knife (1989), Sallinen’s The Palace (1995), Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Aleksis Kivi (1997) and Herman Rechberger's, Olli Kortekangas's and Kalevi Aho's The Age of Dreams (2000). Each year the Festival has, in addition, staged its own production of a leading work from the classical operatic repertoire. The first full-length ballet was Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, in 1990. Over the past decade or so the Savonlinna Opera Festival has also acted host to a series of foreign opera companies. The first of these was the Estonia Theatre from Tallinn. This was followed for the next three seasons by the world-famous Mariinsky (Kirov) Theatre from St. Petersburg, by Covent Garden from London in 1998 and now the Opéra du Rhin from Strasbourg. The Festival has similarly taken some of its own productions abroad.

The Savonlinna Opera Festival has become one of the most illustrious events, of the greatest international significance, in Finland’s cultural life. Aino Ackté was quite right in foreseeing that a first-class opera performance in a romantic medieval castle set amid lake scenery of "supernatural" beauty would be a unique and hence unforgettable experience for anyone fortunate enough to see it.