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Savonlinna Opera Festival 2008
July 4 - August 2, 2008

Macbeth

Macbeth


Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov

Worldwide Ticketing is proud to present the following events and tickets for the
2008 Savonnlina Opera Festival

tickets 2008

SAVONNLINA OPERA FESTIVAL PROGRAMME 2008

LIPUNMYYNTI KAUDELLE 2008 ALKANUT

04.07.2008 Friday

Boito: Mefistofele , ensi-ilta

Olavinlinna

 

05.07.2008 Saturday

Verdi: Rigoletto , ensi-ilta

Olavinlinna

 

06.07.2008 Sunday

Juhlajumalanpalvelus

Olavinlinna

07.07.2008 Monday

Verdi: Aida , ensi-ilta

Olavinlinna

 

08.07.2008 Tuesday

Boito: Mefistofele

Olavinlinna

 

09.07.2008 Wednesday

Verdi: Rigoletto

Olavinlinna

 

10.07.2008 Thursday

Verdi: Aida

Olavinlinna

 

11.07.2008 Friday

Verdi: Rigoletto

Olavinlinna

 

12.07.2008 Saturday

Markus Fagerudd: Seitsemän koiraveljestä , ensi-ilta

Savonlinnasali

 

12.07.2008 Saturday

Boito: Mefistofele

Olavinlinna

 

13.7.2008 Sunday

Roberto Alagna , tenori
Kuopion Kaupunginorkesteri

Olavinlinna

 

14.7.2008 Monday

Markus Fagerudd: Seitsemän koiraveljestä

Savonlinnasali

 

14.7.2008 Monday

Verdi: Aida

Olavinlinna

 

15.07.2008 Tuesday

Markus Fagerudd: Seitsemän koiraveljestä

Savonlinnasali

 

15.07.2008 Tuesday

Boito: Mefistofele

Olavinlinna

 

16.07.2008 Wednesday

Markus Fagerudd: Seitsemän koiraveljestä

Savonlinnasali

 

16.07.2008 Wednesday

Wagner: Lentävä hollantilainen , ensi-ilta

Olavinlinna

 

17.07.2008 Thursday

Markus Fagerudd: Seitsemän koiraveljestä

Savonlinnasali

 

17.07.2008 Thursday

Verdi: Rigoletto

Olavinlinna

 

18.07.2008 Friday

Markus Fagerudd: Seitsemän koiraveljestä

Savonlinnasali

 

18.07.2008 Friday

Verdi: Aida

Olavinlinna

 

19.07.2008 Saturday

Konsertti: Mika Nisula , tenori
Mustakallio-kilpailun voittaja 2006

Savonlinnasali

 

19.07.2008 Saturday

Wagner: Lentävä hollantilainen

Olavinlinna

 

20.07.2008 Sunday

Timo Mustakallio -laulukilpailu

Olavinlinna

 

21.07.2008 Monday

Verdi: Aida

Olavinlinna

 

22.07.2008 Tuesday

Konsertti: Juho Pohjonen , piano

Savonlinnasali

 

22.07.2008 Tuesday

Wagner: Lentävä hollantilainen

Olavinlinna

 

23.07.2008 Wednesday

Savonlinnan Oopperajuhlaorkesterin kamarikonsertti

Savonlinnasali

 

23.07.2008 Wednesday

Verdi: Rigoletto

Olavinlinna

 

24.07.2008 Thursday

Konsertti: Jaakko Ryhänen , basso; Seppo Hovi , piano

Savonlinnasali

 

24.07.2008 Thursday

Verdi: Aida

Olavinlinna

 

25.07.2008 Friday

Konsertti: Classic Buskers , Michael Copley & Ian Moore

Savonlinnasali

 

25.07.2008 Friday

Wagner: Lentävä hollantilainen

Olavinlinna

 

26.07.2008 Saturday

Konsertti: Vuoden taiteilija Mika Kares , basso

Savonlinnasali

 

26.07.2008 Saturday

Verdi: Rigoletto

Olavinlinna

 

27.07.2008 Sunday

Konsertti: Xian Xinghai: Yellow River & Carl Orff: Carmina burana
johtaa Zhang Guoyong & Jari Hämäläinen
Shanghain Oopperan orkesteri ja kuoro, Savonlinnan Oopperajuhlakuoro

Olavinlinna

28.07.2008 Monday

Ei esitystä

Kesän 2008 Oopperatalovieras: Shanghain ooppera

29.7.2008 Tuesday

Verdi: Otello , ensi-ilta

Olavinlinna

 

30.7.2008 Wednesday

Wen Deqing: The Wager - Uhkapeli , ensi-ilta

Olavinlinna

 

31.07.2008 Thursday

Konsertti: Kiinalaisen musiikin konsertti

Savonlinnasali

 

31.07.2008 Thursday

Verdi: Otello

Olavinlinna

 

01.08.2008 Friday

Wen Deqing: The Wager - Uhkapeli

Olavinlinna

 

02.08.2008 Saturday

Verdi: Otello

Olavinlinna

 

For more information on 2008 tickets, please contact us

Savonlinna Hall auditorium
katsomo
Olavinlinna Castle auditorium

For more information on 2008 tickets, please contact us

tickets 2008

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR OPERA VISITORS

The Castle auditorium

The Olavinlinna auditorium seats 2,257 and has facilities for three normal-sized wheelchairs. Section A rises from row 8, section B from row 12 and section C from row 11. All the rows in section D rise.

The box seats 96 and the box tickets include refreshments (sparkling wine/also non-alcoholic and a small savoury/sweet snack during the fist interval). The orchestra is in a pit in front of the stage. The performances are held in the main, covered courtyard.

The Performance will begin at 7:00pm in 2008

Please take your seat in Olavinlinna Castle at least 15 minutes before the start of the performance. Latecommers will have to wait until the first inverval in order to be admitted.

The Castle courtyard can be cool even on a summer evening, so bring warm clothing with you. The Castle passages and floors are very uneven, so wear stout shoes. If the weather is hot, bring a bottle of drinking water with you.

Photographing, recording and smoking are prohibited during the performances, and mobile phones must be switched off.

Surtitles and language of performance

Operas are performed in their original language. The auditorium has a surtitling facility that may not be fully visible from every seat. The surtitle translations of the sung texts are in Finnish and English. The sets of some operas may obstruct the view of the stage from some seats.

Refreshments in the Castle

There are several Olavinlinna Restaurant points in the Castle selling refreshments before and after the performance and during the interval(s). Refreshments are also on sale druing the interval(s) at a number of points in the Castle courtyard, the biggest in the foyer beneath section A of the auditorium. Groups are advised to book their refreshments in advance from the Olavinlinna Restaurant.

The Savonlinna Hall and refreshments

The Savonlinna Hall is next to the Spa Hotel Casino, seats 793 and has has facilities for four normal-sized wheelchairs, at either end of row16. The Hall has 26 rows: rows 1-11 on the same level and rising from row 12. There are no rows 1-3 during the children's operas in order to accommodate the orchestra.

The Spa Hotel Casino sells refreshments before and after the performance and during the interval in the Wanha Kasino restaurant acting as the foyer to the Savonlinna Hall. Refreshments can be ordered in advance from the Spa Hotel Casino.

tickets 2008

SAVONLINNA OPERA FESTIVAL HISTORY


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.


   
 
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Opera Festival 2008 Tickets