• Kaija Saariaho. Opera. 2005.
• Libretto by Amin Maalouf.
• First performance at the Opéra Bastille, Paris, on 3rd April 2006.

---

CHARACTERS

Adriana	mezzo-soprano
Refka, her sister	soprano
Yonas, her son	tenor
Tsargo	bass-baritone

---

Set in the present in an unknown country on the verge of civil war the opera starts with a young drunk, Tsargo, trying to speak with Adriana, a young woman he once danced with. She rebuffs him and Refka, her sister, objects to her even talking to the man. Night approaches and in a dream sequence Tsargo is about to dance with Adriana, but becomes a bottle, which she touches and breaks. She wakes and Tsargo runs off, threatening her. In the following scene Tsargo, now a soldier, returns and demands to be allowed to go up to the roof of Adriana’s house to watch for the enemy. She refuses to let him, but he forces his way in and, presumably, rapes her. In the third scene Adriana is pregnant, and Refka thinks she should get rid of the baby. Refka had dreamt of her own anxiety about the child and Adriana’s fears as to whether the child will be like his father or mother. Seventeen years later Yonas, Adriana’s son, finds out the truth about his father, brought up to believe him a war hero, and determines to kill him. In a dream sequence Yonas kills his whole family and then himself. In reality he blames Refka for allowing him to be told a lie about his father and when he learns that Tsargo is in the country sets out to kill him. In the event he finds that Tsargo is blind and cannot carry out his plan. He returns to his mother and in the last scene the four characters express their own anxieties, while Adriana realises that Yonas, having refused to kill, her son.

In her second opera the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho uses electronic and avant-garde techniques in her exploration of motherhood. As with her first opera, L’Amour de loin, the French libretto is by the French Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, like Saariaho an exile in Paris.