Last summer was a real milestone in the history of the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Following its refurbishment, Olavinlinna Castle was once again an opera venue that attracted and delighted audiences and provided a truly fitting setting for Finland’s most prestigious and most international festival. Summer 2001 will be packed with drama on a grand scale. The Festival will be paying tribute to the memory of the great Italian maestro Giuseppe Verdi, who died a hundred years ago, by staging three of his finest operas: Rigoletto, Aida and Macbeth. The new production for the season, Rigoletto, marks the long-awaited return to Olavinlinna of our Verdi specialist Ralf Långbacka. Not only does Långbacka possess endless powers of creation; he also has a phenomenal ability to bring opera alive on stage. By immersing himself in the score he is able to bring out the topical aspects of a work without placing it in a modern setting. His partnership and perfect understanding with stage and costume designer Lennart Mörk alone promise a wealth of operatic thrills in a production that will undoubtedly sell well abroad. Rigoletto will be premiered in the Castle on July 11, 2001 with Paolo Carignani conducting. Ralf Långbacka’s highly successful production of Macbeth will be back on the programme, to the joy of the opera-going public. The Savonlinna production with sets and costumes designed by Anneli Qveflander is considered one of the best of all times anywhere in the world. The conductor in 2001 will be Asher Fisch. The third big Verdi drama is Aida, an opera staged for Savonlinna in 1986 by the late Hungarian director András Mikó. The return of this ever-popular opera is eagerly awaited in a redirection by Juha Hemánus. The stage and costume designer will be Seppo Nurmimaa and the conductor Alberto Hold-Garrido. Continuing in the repertoire for 2001 will be the new Finnish opera The Age of Dreams premiered at the millennium Festival. This trilogy by three eminent composers – Herman Rechberger, Olli Kortekangas and Kalevi Aho – and based on a libretto by Paavo Rintala aroused strong opinions and well demonstrated that there is no absolute truth in art. Here was an opera unlike virtually any other in the operatic repertoire. Truth and fantasy are products of the listener’s mind, which is just as it should be in theatre at its very best. The ingenious direction by Jussi Tapola, the superbly functional stage designs of Hannu Lindholm and the costumes by Sari Suominen in perfect keeping with the different eras make The Age of Dreams, with its magnificent choral scenes, a spectacle on a grand scale. The conductor is Osmo Vänskä. The Savonlinna Opera Festival has for many years acted host to a variety of opera houses from abroad. The visiting company for the 2001 season will be from Los Angeles, whose Opera will be bringing along two quite different masterpieces: Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Richard Strauss’s Salome. Audiences can thus expect theatre of the highest standard. The orchestra for both will be the Philharmonia Hungarica founded in 1957 by Hungarian emigrants and domiciled in Germany. Naturally the Savonlinna Opera Festival will once again be putting on a series of first-rate concerts, too. In honour of the Verdi jubilee there will be a performance in the Castle on July 29 of his mighty Requiem sung by star Finnish soloists Soile Isokoski, Monica Groop, Raimo Sirkiä and Matti Salminen with the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra and Choir conducted by Leif Segerstam. Lied lovers will appreciate the opportunity to hear Soile Isokoski accompanied by Marita Viitasalo in the Castle on July 8, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky with Mihail Arkadiyev at the piano at Retretti on July 15. The Wanha Kasino will be the scene of two interesting events, one on July 14 at which Ralf Långbacka, Artist of the Year, will be talking about his life and career and introducing a band of musical guests, and the other on July 21, when Matti Raekallio will be giving a stirring recital in a milieu steeped in tradition. Kari Kriikku and friends will be making music in the Little Church on July 17, and the Estonian early music ensemble Hortus Musicus led by Andres Mustonen will be looking back across the centuries at the Cathedral on July 22. The Savonlinna Opera Festival is an opportunity to close the door on the everyday world and open the mind to music, drama, nature, and medieval Olavinlinna Castle, at the start of a new millennium in harmony with the magnificent operatic tradition of centuries past.