Performances
After the premiere, the opera has already had almost three hundred performances. Finnish National Opera toured with the work in seven cities abroad - including at New York's Metropolitan Opera. At the Finnish National Opera there have been three productions: 1975-1983 (directed by Sakari Puurunen) and 1994 (directed by Paavo Liski) and 2001 (directed by Jussi Tapola).
The Savonlinna Opera Festival performed the opera for several years, 1977-1980. In Helsinki and Savonlinna the most famous singers in the role of Paavo were Martti Talvela and Jaakko Ryhänen.
In 2007 the opera was performed as a half-staged production in the Temppeliaukio church in Helsinki four times. Finnish film director Åke Lindman directed The Last Temptations on the original homestead of Paavo Ruotsalainen in Aholansaari, Nilsiä, Finland during four summers in 2000-2003 from where the production was transferred to new ourdoor arena in Nilsiä to be performed in summer 2007.
A renewed full scale production of the opera saw light in summer 2009 in Nivala, Finland. In the roles were baritone Esa Ruuttunen as Paavo, soprano Johanna Rusanen-Kartano as Riitta, Petri Pussila as smith and Lassi Virtanen, first man.
Read more about this topic: The Last Temptations
Famous quotes containing the word performances:
“This play holds the season’s record [for early closing], thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence it ran just five performances too many.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing ever happened. That, of course, was the miracle
But you wanted to know why so much action took on so much life
And still managed to remain itself, aloof, smiling and courteous.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)