Composer portraits no. 9 SHH! or BEING DIVINE – Impressions of Jean Sibelius 12.-15.11.2015

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Alexander Theatre
Nov, 12 at 19.00
Nov, 14 at 19.00
Nov, 15 at 16.00

Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
Juha Siltanen, script & stage direction
Leena Nuora, actress
Jaana Pesonen, actress
Mervi Takatalo, actress
Janne Nisonen, conductor
Monica Groop, mezzo-soprano
Jouko Laivuori, piano

Kaisa Salmi, lighting and stage design
Tuomas Lampinen, costume design
Juhani Liimatainen, sound design

SHH! or being divine is a tragicomic spectacle about people and the “God” in the next room – a gently ironic portrait of Finland’s official genius.

And oh how Finnish he was, our Jean Sibelius: full of self-admiration and self-contempt, a premonition of death and omnipotence, sociability and an abnormal fear of people, always in crisis, always invulnerable, forever the repentant sinner yet in his own mind always “divine”. And modern, too – a bit like the nerd who escapes from reality, the lord of a fantasy world.

Jean Sibelius, aka Sibba, is also very much present in this the 150th year since his birth. Or has he really ventured to come along in person? And how did others feel about living in a house in which something mysteriously unique was always going on in one of the rooms? Three women in a portrait frame tiptoe silently, shhh, shhhh, through the room, laying the table, swatting at a fly, waiting for Something. Shadowing them, like ghosts, are many Avanti! combinations, in strains both foreseen and unforeseen.

Tickets 30€/20€ www.lippupalvelu.fi