Despite being a prolific composer of symphonies and instrumental music, Aulis Sallinen's reputation—at least in this country—rests on his operas, and in particular on his second, The Red Line (1976-8), which was received in some quarters with near adulation when the Finnish National Opera brought it to London in the late 1970s. Expectations were high for his next stage work, The King Goes Forth To France (1980-3), jointly commissioned by the Savonlinna Festival, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the BBC. Just as the starkly realistic Red Line was perhaps over-hyped, so The King Goes Forth To France was roundly and unfairly dismissed as something of an aberration. I never shared this view of The King, since to have expected Sallinen to produce another Red Line in the context of the satirical and surreal subject of The King was to miss the point completely. What is now clear from his fourth and latest opera, Kullervo (1986-88), is that The King was an important staging post in his development which required Sallinen to refine further both his instrumental palette and imaginative resource to a much higher level than in his earlier operas. If the music of The Red Line was more striking in profile this was due in large part to the nature of the plot, but the music of The King served its purpose at least as well; the problems of critical perception seemed to me to centre on what that purpose was.
Kullervo unites the disparate strands of Sallinen's previous operas into a dramatic and musical synthesis that perhaps even surpasses his previous output. Indeed, it would be tempting to view it as his masterpiece were he not likely enough to produce another still better in the future—perhaps even The Palace, upon which he is currently working. The dark tone of Kullervo recalls The Red Line's grim and hostile landscape, the music depicting this bleakest of tales from the Kalevala with an awesome sense of power and foreboding. Again, the delicacy of some of the writing, particularly associated with Kullervo's mother—who shines like a beacon through the opera—is in marked contrast to the prevailing mood, providing oases of calm amidst the raging and at times feverish storm of Kullervo's life. This alone shows how well the lessons have been learned from The King as does the integrated and restrained use of a synthesizer (unlike the rather awkward use of the instrument in Rautavaara's Vincent). Compari- sons are bound to be made with Sibelius's great early symphony (which Jorma Hynninen has also recorded), and despite the wide difference in language, there are several points of concurrence between them. But Sallinen in 1986 approaching this subject was a far more mature composer than was Sibelius in 1890, and the operatic medium has suited him every bit as well as the symphony/tone poem form fitted his predecessor. Isolating moments in such a score for particular praise is an invidious task, where the sheer variety of tone and texture is one of its strongest and most attractive features. The utterly black opening, with its low bass sonorities, and the mother's aria ''Shall I weep for you?'' may indicate something of Kullervo's range, as do the Blind Singer's ''Song of the Sister's Ravishing'', where the real and legendary worlds memorably collide, and Kullervo's final immolation (nowhere near as long drawn out as Brunnhilde's but just as effective in its own way), both extraordinary moments from a composer at the height of his powers.
Originally commissioned to open the new and still unfinished National Opera House in Helsinki, Kullervo was finally premiered in Los Angeles earlier this year by the Finnish National Opera who actually made this recording in 1991. Jorma Hynninen in the title role is on his usual exemplary form, strongly supported by all the cast and conductor Ulf Soderblom and an admirably balanced recording which allows all the detail to show. Surely a contender for this year's best opera recording.'