Aino

Melartin’s Aino (1909) was one of the first great Finnish operas to find a place in the permanent repertoire. His description of it as “a Kalevalaic mystery” says much about the essence of the work, which describes the attempt by Väinämöinen, the great hero of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, to woo the young Aino, who prefers to end her days rather than marry an old man. The action in Aino is kept to a minimum. Rather, the opera is in the nature of a lyrical meditation on the workings of the mind. As in the Wagner operas, worldviews are more important than characters. In musical idiom the opera is Late Romantic, but it also has Impressionistic overtones. Melartin also made flexible use of Wagnerian Leitmotiv technique. He defined 22 leitmotivs that are connected with the characters in the opera, or with objects, actions, moods and ideas and that maintain the musical coherence.