Experience four new short opera works in one evening, all shaped by the present moment.
TheMouthpiece, The Request, Emerge: Oops…life! and love is a rebellious bird explore the themes of trauma, class, technology and fantasy. Their rugged edges, black comedy and touching beauty come together in surprising and unsettling ways.
The Sugar Factory is a three-year programme financed by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Its aim is to support the making of new opera in Finland. Composers, librettists and directors have combined their talents to create new, short works for Almi Hall at the Finnish National Opera.
Pricing
Ticket categories: Standard ticket prices are 10–50 euros depending on the seat. Ticket discounts do not apply to these performances.
The Request contains themes about pedophilia and pornography. The performance contains scenes with bright flashing lights and simulated nudity.
On Saturday 15 August, the artists will discuss the works of The Sugar Factory in the Almi Hall foyer after the matinée at 3 p.m.
Learn more about the works
sokeritehdas
The Mouthpiece
After a visit to the dentists´, this poor kid´s life is never going to be the same again.
What begins in a sterile waiting room unravels into a wild journey through class divides, childhood fears, and the grotesque kingdom inside a sickly mouth.
Here, the Tooth Troll and the Tooth Fairy rule with equal menace and charm, blurring the line between fantasy and nightmare.
This opera blends dark humor, social commentary, and vivid imagination into a story about a child left to face consequences they never chose.
sokeritehdas
The Request
The Request contains themes about pedophilia and pornography. The performance contains scenes with bright flashing lights and simulated nudity.
A young man commissions a sex robot replica of his childhood self.
A confrontation with the biases, assumptions, and moral values embedded in the machine. The Request explores memory, identity, and the cultural impact of a porn saturated world through a deeply human, unsettling encounter.
It speaks to a generation shaped by digital intimacy, mainstreamed pornography, and technologies that increasingly influence how we see ourselves and others. At its core, it’s an opera about broken people struggling to survive, heal, and reclaim their humanity.
sokeritehdas
Emerge: Oops…life!
Emerge: Oops…life! is a dark comedy about three women who witness a violent incident on the street—an event that forces them to confront the traumas of their own lives. Suddenly, something small is enough to shatter a glass ceiling built over many years.
The piece offers a social commentary on womanhood from three viewpoints, combining episodic storytelling with time as a musical and theatrical element, and cinematic video material integrated into the live stage space.
Emerge: Oops…life! is not a story of survival. Rather, it offers observations on the inherent absurdity of life itself, and on how a lived life leaves its marks on us, both good and bad.
sokeritehdas
love is a rebellious bird
you’re gonna think about me when you’re dying du wirst an mich denken wenn du am sterben bist penserai a me quando morirai tu penseras a moi quand tu morras
love is a rebellious bird is a ritual between carmen’s death and rebirth. A flock of black birds guides the audience through a haunted opera experience. The birds deliver messages between darkness and light and sing of love and death at the dawn of a new world.
Gallery
The Mouthpiece: Sarah Zieba, Sam Taskinen. Photo Ilkka Saastamoinen
The Mouthpiece: Sarah Zieba, Jasper Leppänen, Vilma Hyvärinen, Isabella Shaw, Sam Taskinen. Photo Ilkka Saastamoinen
The Mouthpiece: Sarah Zieba, Vilma Hyvärinen. Photo Ilkka Saastamoinen
The Request: Olga Heikkilä, Tuula Paavola, Jasper Leppänen, Emilia Vesalainen-Pellas. Photo Ilkka Saastamoinen
The Request: Jasper Leppänen. Photo Ilkka Saastamoinen
Emerge: Oops…life! Sirpa Nuuttila, Sam Taskinen, Júlia Arquillo. Photo Ilkka Saastamoinen
The Almi Hall stage is the smaller stage of the Opera House. Entrance to Almi Hall is located on the Töölönlahti bay side.
The seating in Almi Hall has a slight incline in rows 1–7, with a steeper incline starting from row 8. Additional rows A–E are on a flat floor but are not used for all performances.
Please note that the Almi Hall stage is about one meter high. Therefore, we do not recommend purchasing tickets for the front rows if you are coming to the performance with, for example, small children.
The Sugar Factory – New Opera Works is a programme launched with the support of the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Its aim is to bring together creative minds to explore what opera can be today and to open opera to a diverse range of artistic voices.
Each year, composers, writers, directors and other artists selected through an Expression of Interest process will work in small groups to create new, 10 to 20 minute operas to be performed at Almi Hall in the Opera House.
