Get a 1st Look at Innocence at the Metropolitan Opera

Kaija Saariaho's final opera has its Met premiere April 6.

April 03, 2026 By Natan Zamansky

Joyce DiDonato and Vilma Jää in *Innocence* at the Metropolitan Opera (Karen Almond / Met Opera)

Innocence, the final opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, will have its Met premiere Monday, April 6, in a production by Simon Stone. Get a first look at the new production in the gallery below.

Set at a wedding in Helsinki, the opera's drama unfolds as it is revealed that the groom's brother was the perpetrator of a school shooting 10 years prior. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato stars as the waitress, whose daughter Markéta was one of the victims of the shooting, with Finnish folk singer Vilma Jää appearing as Markéta, reprising the role she played in the opera's 2021 premiere.

The complete cast includes soprano Jacquelyn Stucker as the Bride, tenor Miles Mykkanen as the Groom, soprano Kathleen Kim as the Mother-in-law, baritone Rod Gilfry as the Father-in-law, bass Stephen Milling as the Priest, and soprano Lucy Shelton as the Teacher. Shelton reprises her role from the opera's world premiere, along with actors Beate Mordal, Julie Hega, Simon Kluth, Camilo Delgado Díaz, and Marina Dumont Anastassiadou as five students.

Stone leads a creative team including set designer Chloe Lamford, costume designer Mel Page, sound designer Timo Kurkikangas, lighting designer James Farncombe, and choreographer Arco Renz. Susanna Mälkki will conduct.

In 2016 Kaija Saariaho made history when her opera L'Amour de Loin became only the second opera composed by a woman to be produced at the Met, and the first in over a century, following Ethel Smyth's Der Wald in 1903. Innocence will be the second of Saariaho's operas to be performed at the Met.

Innocence runs through April 29. For more information, visit MetOpera.org.