Opera BOX, began operations in August 2016 with Richard Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos at the Alexander Theater. Winged by the success of the production, in August 2017 we performed the Barber of Seville at the Alexander Theater. Since then, we have performed the AINO gala, Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Segerstam's premiere The Song of the Forest People, Verdi's Rigoletto, this year's Lehar's Giuditta, Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tiresias and the premiere of our first commission opera Damström: Vickan & Väinö. Our productions have been both critical and audience successes. Gradually Opera BOX has become Helsinki's second opera stage.
The company consists of director Ville Saukkonen, tenor Ville Salonen and conductor Jonas Rannila. The aim of the association is to maintain and develop Finnish opera, to produce operas at the Alexander Theater in Helsinki and to make guest performances of them in other parts of Finland and abroad. Our artistic line is to offer professional, compelling and, where possible, opera and operetta in domestic languages. Our intention is to perform opera on a large scale, our future repertoire will include German, Italian, British and French opera as well as baroque and children's opera and operetta. We want to continue ordering new contemporary operas. We want to keep the scale humane, our funding consists of ticket revenues and grants. We don’t want to take indefinite financial risks, but artistically we have no boundaries. Our goal is to offer the general public a high-quality Finnish music culture and at the same time employ and offer performance opportunities for a large number of artists. At the same time, we want to keep the Alexander Theater an active Finnish opera stage. An important course of action for us is openness, we strive to announce future productions in a timely manner and we hold open auditions for all roles. This is not the case in other opera-producing communities.
In the spring of 2019, Opera BOX was accepted as a member of Opera Europa, the central organization for the opera, and BOX is looking for future partners and funding for future productions.
Our future productions 2023 include Shostakovich Moskva Cheryomushki, Puccini Turandot, Vivaldi Ottone in Villa and two comissions. Stefan Lindgren's In Transit and Tuomas Kantelinen's Christmas opera.
