Jekyll & Hyde

Finnish National Opera, Main Stage, Helsinki, Finland

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2 PM 7 PM

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Important Info

Type: Ballet

City: Helsinki, Finland

Starts at: 14:00

Intervals: 1

Duration: 2h 35min

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

Can I choose my seats?

Overview

A tale of a dark mind and shady streets.

Edward Hyde, a mysterious villain, is wreaking havoc in London, leaving hatred, fear and disgust in his wake. At the same time the respected doctor Henry Jekyll is conducting experiments in his laboratory to change human character and personality. The connection between Jekyll and Hyde is stranger than anyone could ever imagine.

The case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story about the deep contradictions of the human psyche and its capacity for both good and evil. The ballet, set in Victorian England, travels from the misty streets of London to the horrors of a mental hospital to the elegance of high society. Val Caniparoli’s choreography had its world premiere at the Finnish National Ballet in 2020, and in spring 2023 the classic story will be back on stage.

The Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his classic story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886. The novel, which shocked Victorian readers with its unusually deep forays into the human soul, had such impact that the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” has become a standard reference to the polarities within the human character.

At the time of writing, Stevenson suffered from lung haemorrhages and took hallucinogenic drugs to alleviate his pain. He completed his nightmarish novella in his sickbed in a matter of days. Stevenson’s illness and the suffering it caused are profoundly embedded in the story of this new ballet.

Like the Victorian era, the story of Jekyll and Hyde is layered with multiple secrets, including promiscuity and homosexuality, which were rarely addressed openly in that morally conservative culture. These hidden longings will help inform the choreography of this world premiere.

Val Caniparoli is a highly renowned choreographer from the United States. He is most closely associated with San Francisco Ballet, where he has worked 46 years, and also served as resident choreographer. His productions have been performed by more than 50 ballet companies, for example The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Symphony and American Conservatory Theater and internationally in South Africa, Singapore, Scotland and Hong Kong, among others. His choreography has also been seen at the Finnish National Ballet in 2017 in Lady of the Camellias. Jekyll & Hyde had its world premiere at the Finnish National Ballet in 2020.

Synopsis

The writer Robert Louis Stevenson is lying feverishly in bed at night, hallucinating. He begins to imagine the tale of a good doctor who turns into his evil twin.

Dr. Jekyll is trying to demonstrate the idea of dual personality to a group of wealthy donors in a mental asylum. Failing to convince the crowd of the efficacy of his ideas, Jekyll returns to the privacy of his own laboratory for further experimentation, frenetically pursuing his goal of unearthing the hidden underbelly of the human experience. He feels a premonition of Mr. Hyde, the repressed force of evil whom Jekyll is trying to unleash. To resist the pull of Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll attends a party at Sir Danvers Carew, whose daughter Nellie he is engaged to. As the party draws to a close, the gentlemen guests decide to finish the evening at Deacon Brodie’s Tavern, an underworld den of prostitutes, lowlifes, and drugs. Jekyll begins to shed his proper demeanor and come alive, as we sense his “other self” emerging. Propelled back out onto the city streets, Jekyll begins to transform before our eyes. The effects are immediate and startling: nightmare versions of characters we have already encountered begin to appear. At the climax of Jekyll’s hallucination, Mr. Hyde emerges triumphantly from the shadows.

In an elegant ballroom, Sir Danvers Carew is giving a party. Mr. Hyde appears, engaging provocatively with the guests. Fearing that the effects of the potion are about to wear off, Hyde escapes back to the streets, where he collides with a small child. In his rage and panic, Hyde beats the child to death with his cane. Back at his lab, Hyde struggles to resist returning to the body and mind of Dr. Jekyll. The terrifying figures of hallucination return.

Dr. Jekyll, isolating himself from the public eye and frightened about where his “research” is taking him, returns to his experiments in the lab. Friends and colleagues come to visit but Jekyll resists seeing them. Finally at Dr. Lanyon’s insistence, Jekyll consumes the dangerous potion in front of them, transforming into the raging Mr. Hyde. Violence and destruction ensue as Hyde attacks his former friends and destroys Dr. Lanyon, Sir Danvers Carew, and Rowena, a prostitute at the tavern. When Nellie Carew goes to Dr. Jekyll’s house out of concern for the doctor she has loved, her encounter becomes more and more violent until Hyde tells her to “RUN!” and she escapes. In the empty lab, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde battle with each other for dominance and survival. Stevenson reappears, and all of this has been happening in his feverish imagination. The world of the mental hospital returns, as Stevenson realizes that in writing the story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he has unleashed a monster into the world, the dark side of all of our better selves.

Venue Info

Finnish National Opera - Helsinki
Helsinginkatu 58 PL 176

The Finnish National Opera is a Finnish opera company based in Helsinki. Its home base is the Opera House on Töölönlahti bay in Töölö, which opened in 1993, and is state-owned through Senate Properties. The Opera House features two auditoriums, the main auditorium with 1,350, seats and a smaller studio auditorium with 300-500 seats.

Regular opera performances began in Finland in 1873 with the founding of the Finnish Opera by Kaarlo Bergbom. Prior to that, opera had been performed in Finland sporadically by touring companies, and on occasion by Finnish amateurs, the first such production being The Barber of Seville in 1849. However, the Finnish Opera company soon plunged into a financial crisis and folded in 1879. During its six years of operation, Bergbom’s opera company had given 450 performances of a total of 26 operas, and the company had managed to demonstrate that opera can be sung in Finnish too. After the disbandment of the Finnish Opera, the opera audiences of Helsinki had to confine themselves to performances of visiting opera companies and occasional opera productions at the Finnish National Theatre.

The reincarnation of the Finnish opera institution took place about 30 years later. A group of notable social and cultural figures, led by the international star soprano Aino Ackté, founded the Domestic Opera in 1911. From the very beginning, the opera decided to engage both foreign and Finnish artists. A few years later the Domestic Opera was renamed the Finnish Opera in 1914. In 1956, the Finnish Opera was, in turn, taken over by the Foundation of the Finnish National Opera, and acquired its present name.

Between 1918 and 1993 the home of the opera was the Alexander Theater, which had been assigned to the company on a permanent basis. The home was inaugurated with an opening performance of Verdi’s Aida. When the first dedicated opera house in Finland was finally completed and inaugurated in 1993, the old opera house was given back its original name, the Alexander Theater, after the Tsar Alexander II.

The Finnish National Opera has some 30 permanently engaged solo singers, a professional choir of 60 singers and its own orchestra of 120 members. The Ballet has 90 dancers from 17 countries. All together, the opera has a staff of 735.

Past music directors and chief conductors have included Armas Järnefelt (1932–36), Tauno Pylkkänen (1960-1967), Okko Kamu (1996–2000), Muhai Tang (2003–2006), and Mikko Franck (2006-2013). With the 2013-2014 season, the Finnish mezzo-soprano Lilli Paasikivi became artistic director of the company, and the German conductor Michael Güttler became principal conductor with the company. The initial contracts for both Paasikivi and Güttler are for 3 years. Since 2008, Kenneth Greve has served as artistic director of Finnish National Ballet. His current contract is through 2018.

The Finnish National Opera stages four to six premieres a year, including a world premiere of at least one Finnish opera, such as Rasputin by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Some 20 different operas in 140 performances are found in the opera's schedule yearly. The Ballet arranges some 110 performances annually. The Finnish National Opera has some 250,000 visitors a year.

Important Info

Type: Ballet

City: Helsinki, Finland

Starts at: 14:00

Intervals: 1

Duration: 2h 35min

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