“Innocence,” now playing at the Metropolitan Opera, is already unusual, with a brutally modern story told in nine languages and a score that constantly shifts between aching melodies and harshly percussive speech. At one point, though, something even stranger is introduced. And it’s unlike anything in opera.
A character in “Innocence,” a breakneck drama about the far reach of a school shooting’s damage, lets out a brightly youthful sound, eerie and outside the boundaries of tempo and musical time. She sings in phrases of pure tone that end with an upward whip, or of scooping melodies punctuated by a yodel-like vocal break that is stark and so moving, it feels impossible to focus on anything else.
It’s the sound of Vilma Jää, 30, a folk and pop singer from Finland. She made her opera debut with the premiere of “Innocence” in 2021; Kaija Saariaho, the work’s composer, had written the role of Markéta specifically for Jää (pronounced like “yeah”). Their collaboration has brought the traditional music of Finland and Karelia, a region that includes eastern Finland, to the opera stage in the most authentic form possible.
Jää’s character, Markéta, is a victim of the school shooting, spectrally moving among scenes set in the present and scenes that depict the trauma of 10 years earlier. Her voice has a disarming childishness that turns shattering as she describes how she was killed.
“Dying onstage day after day, during rehearsals and then night after night, it was very draining on me, and very burdensome,” Jää said of her role. It wasn’t until the Met revival that she learned to “protect” herself from the story, with help from Joyce DiDonato, the singer who plays her mother.
Opera, and theater in general, were new to Jää when she was cast in “Innocence,” but the kind of music she sings in it was not. The vocal writing for Markéta is based on specific traditional sounds that Saariaho learned from Jää. And because they involve an element of spontaneity, Saariaho added cadenzas, open-ended solos in which Jää can improvise herding calls, for example, making each performance unique.
Jää’s role is based on two techniques from her folk background, which was first developed at home with her parents (her father sings, and her mother enjoys traditional dresses and dances from Karelia) then honed in the folk music department at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
One is Karjankutsu, or Finnish herding calls, whose high pitches and straight tones without vibrato help the voice carry across far distances. In the opera, the sound is piercingly direct, and used as Markéta recounts the events of the school shooting. She ends lines with calls that come off chillingly more like cries. Hear Karjankutsu below:
The other is Viena Karelian yoik, from a specific area of Karelia, which involves the voice-breaking; Jää breaks on the letter H, extending its sound and rendering it more of a “ha-ha.” Traditionally, this has been used in songs to mock young men, and at one point “Innocence” does something similar, with a flashback in which Jää’s character teases the shooter in front of their classmates at an international school. Hear Viena Karelian yoik below:
As “Innocence” has been revived throughout Europe and the United States, Jää has repeatedly been singled out for her performance. “All of the sudden my name is everywhere, and everyone wants to interview me,” she said. “Kaija told me that she knew that would happen, that people would react like this.”
Jää is the same age as Saariaho’s daughter, the conductor Aliisa Neige Barrière, which Jää believed led to a kind of maternal protection from Saariaho, who died in 2023. Jää would get calls from Saariaho, who was just checking in on the young performer as she entered the public eye and, eventually, started releasing her own music. Her debut pop album, “Kosta,” which came out in 2023, blends folk traditions with synth dance beats.
In her pop music, Jää sometimes takes old folk songs, which are archived in Finland, and puts a contemporary, often feminist twist on them. (One hit from her album is a fiery takedown of a sexual predator, using Karjankutsu technique.) Her next release, “Loitsui ja taikoi,” comes out on May 8, shortly after the Met’s run of “Innocence” concludes.
The opera and the new album both reverently adopt centuries-old traditions for modern art forms without sacrificing authenticity. Most of the time, Jää said, folk tunes lose their soul and precision when adapted for symphony orchestras, but under Saariaho’s care that didn’t happen in “Innocence.”
“Folk music is everything to me,” Jää said. “It’s what gives my life meaning, because I feel like when I’m singing these very old traditions, I’m a part of something bigger than myself, a lineage of especially female singers and storytellers. It’s a beautiful history, and Kaija gave us this new medium to keep it alive.”
Joshua Barone is an editor for The Times covering classical music and dance. He also writes criticism about classical music and opera.
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