Customer Reviews

The Gift of the Magi - Rautavaara / Tapiola Sinfonieta

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This television production of Einojuhani Rautavaara's chamber opera THE GIFT OF THE MAGI was produced by Finland's national broadcasting company YLE for Christmas 1997. This Finnish-language retelling of O Henry's famous story is set in a Helsinki tenement in the 1920s, as Joel (baritone, Jaako Kortekangas) and Minna (soprano, Pia Freud) try to celebrate the holidays in spite of their poverty. The couple are beset by their cruel landlord Mr. Salomon (bass, Martti Wallen), encounter the neighbourhood easy girl Queen of Sheba (mezzo-soprano, Anna-Lisa Jakobson) and visit the wigmaker Zoff Musunoff (tenor, Lassi Virtanen). Petri Sakari leads the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Verajapelto Choir.

I've been quite the critic of Rautavaara's music. His works consists of little more than triads over a pedal point without much in the way of development or tension, "all sauce and no pasta" as one listener put it. Nonetheless, the sheer emptiness of his music, however vast in orchestration and duration, has a strange fascination. In his output, his operas tend to be a bit more successful, because the music can take second place to the dramatic action, which here is of sufficient interest. I enjoyed YLE's re-creation of a very different Finland, as before the war this Nordic country had a rigid system of social classes that has completely disappeared. The roles of Mr. Salomon and the Queen of Sheba, missing from O. Henry's original story, provide commentary on how hard it was for the poor to get by in Finland before the rise of the welfare state.

Rautavaara infamously loves to quote from old works when writing new ones, to the point that Anne Sivuoja-Gunaratnam titled her paper on Rautavaaran intertextuality "Narcissus musicus". In "The Gift of the Magi", you'll hear motifs linked especially to the first and third movements of the Symphony No. 8 "Angel of Light" that the composer was working on around the same time.

The opera runs about 45 minutes. The European release of the opera by ArtHaus Musik also contains a 45-minute documentary from the same year entitled "Gift of Dreams", where we observe Rautavaara working with Vladimir Ashkenazy on his third piano concerto (the pianist seems quite disappointed), preparing his opera "Alexis Kivi" and witnessing the premiere of the string quintet "Unknown Heavens". While there's nothing revelatory here, I think it will appeal to fans of Rautavaara. Therefore, it's strange that this American release by Kultur lacks the extra material, charging full price for only 45 minutes of content.

Bottom line: if you think you'd enjoy this, go for the European release.

This is a short, lovely and beautiful opera produced specifically for TV broadcast in Finland, which could seem awkward at points to US viewers. The story is based on a famous one by O. Henry (with the same name), although it is set in Finland instead of the US. Some may find this opera unconventional, and even argue that it is on the border between a musical and an opera. Personally, I don't think it matters; here we have a touching love story happening on Christmas Eve with great settings, music and singers to be enjoyed by all. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to explore contemporary composers and new ways to produce opera.
Regrettably, Kultur does not provide any information whatsoever; not a wise way of promoting opera, art and their own future products.

The production is fine, the images clear and the sets nicely done, the music clear. It is sung in Finnish with English subtitles. It tells the story, but the ratio of singing to images is off. There is very little vocal music relative to the story and this seems strange for an opera. It may be excessive sensitivity but to me the character of Mr Salomon seems stereotypically Jewish -- long nose, etc. I find that this use of a historic and unflattering sterotype bothersome.