Abraham’s Feast (Helsinki)
Jukka Linkola's Opera at the Helsinki Music Centre
Technical Production, Marketing, Video Prodution, Printed Materials, Website, & Supplemental Animation
Project Overview
In the spring of 2018, Jukka Linkola‘s opera Abraham’s Feast (Abrahamin pidot), which had debuted in Liminka in 2017, received a new life with two performances at Finland’s most prestigious venue, the Helsinki Music Centre Concert Hall. This ambitious revival was made possible by librettist and co-director Helena Tornberg, who personally funded the project to bring the production to the grand stage.
Services Involved
Jukka Linkola
Composer
In 2017, a new Finnish opera, Abraham’s Feast, premiered in Liminka. I am the composer of the opera and closely followed the entire event and its preparation period. In 2018, the production was brought to the Helsinki Music Centre, where it was performed twice. A significant change in the production was the transition from a beautiful outdoor theater to a dark indoor venue. This required major and inventive efforts in terms of visualization. In particular, the use of video as a set element in Helsinki was something entirely new.
Eero Karvonen played an exceptionally diverse role in these performances: as an event producer, graphic designer, video creator and editor, as well as the developer of the orchestral backing track used in rehearsals.
This virtual orchestra production was built by Eero from the composition’s Sibelius files. He mixed and designed the backing track, carefully selecting high-quality samples for each instrument. The resulting orchestration sounded remarkably rich and colorful. This was an immense help in staging the work, especially in rehearsing Jouni Prittinen’s impressive choreography. Practicing a dance choreography with only piano accompaniment is not particularly rewarding, and since there was no orchestral recording of the premiere production, having a well-crafted orchestral track was crucial for structuring the stage movement and its proper rhythm.
Eero’s versatile expertise and comprehensive understanding of a newly rehearsed production benefited all participants throughout the entire working process. His approach is calm, cooperative, and constructive, which greatly facilitated adapting the production – originally designed for the cultural park in Liminka – to a completely different venue, the massive Helsinki Music Centre.
Karvonen’s talent encompasses professional ingenuity and an exceptionally broad artistic sensibility. These were essential factors in the success of both performances of my opera. His contribution as a single individual was invaluable!
I wholeheartedly recommend Eero Karvonen’s work in all its aspects.
Helena Tornberg
Author & Director
Creative Entrepreneur
Eero approaches challenges with enthusiasm and dedication. He understands collaboration as a whole while also creatively solving unexpected details.
My Role & Contributions
The performances were carried out by an almost identical team, with the opera still fresh in everyone’s memory, allowing us to manage with just a few rehearsals.
For this production, I took on the role of technical producer, overseeing tasks such as stage mapping, sound reproduction, lighting design, and presentation graphics. Additionally, I served as Tornberg’s production assistant, handling all contract matters.
My responsibilities also included creating and deploying all the marketing materials, ranging from looping video ads for display screens across Helsinki to digital images optimized for various platforms and formats. Additionally, I designed supporting graphics to be displayed on the big screen throughout the performances.
During the performances, I was the operator of multimedia – that is, launching all the sound effects and images and animations projected on the screen.
We benefited greatly from the expertise of the Helsinki Music Centre’s performance technology team, from whom I quickly learned a great deal while collaborating: sound engineers Enno Mäemets and Kirsi Peteri gave me a crash course on what the audio systems in a top-level venue consist of and how they are operated, while I also gained additional insights about professional lighting and presentation of multimedia respectively from the lighting designer Valo Virtanen and performance technician Erik Roos.
Graphic Design
Here are select posters, newspaper ads, digital banners, and other custom images I designed and produced for the marketing. I also assisted with and oversaw the creation of press releases.
New, Updated Website
Additionally, I designed and developed a completely new website for the opera while integrating the upgraded Liminka site within it. Since 2024, the website is updated, operated, and paid for by Sharp Dis-Chord to keep information about the project available online. Click the image below to visit the site.
Abrahamin pidot (Abraham’s Feast) 2018 website © Eero Karvonen
Photo Gallery
Opera volunteers fron Liminka, Pirkko Moisander and Liisa Eklund, actively photographed the Helsinki production. The images below are mostly from their contributions. The first gallery showcases scenes from the opera itself; the second one takes a look behind the scenes.
3D Animation Production
To address a logistical challenge, I created a couple of minutes of 3D animation for a specific scene, as a large foam statue representing a horrifying rendition of monk Savonarola, which was used in the Liminka production, couldn’t be transported to Helsinki. See the animation in action on the big screen via the link below.
Savonarola transforms into an eerie skullface and howling wolves appear © Eero Karvonen
Promo Videos and Multimedia Display Ads
To promote the opera, I produced a revamped trailer video for Abraham’s Feast, repurposing video material recorded by Esajuha Posti from the original Liminka performances. I also created short 10-second video loops tailored for the video displays in the Oulu City, the Helsinki Tram, and the Helsinki Music Centre.
The trailer for the Helsinki production featured video footage from the original Liminka performance © Eero Karvonen, Esajuha Posti (original footage)
Featured Animations
For the video trailer, I utilized the 3D camera technique I already used in the 2017 trailer – this time enriched with video footage from the original performances.
Video-enhanced role gallery animated for the opera trailer © Eero Karvonen
Video-enhanced crew gallery animated for the opera trailer © Eero Karvonen
For a singalong hymn in the opera, I had already recreated a virtually orchestrated audio track accompanied by a karaoke-style animation, which was a useful piece of marketing material once again.
A small speck of light follows the rhythm jumping between the notes © Eero Karvonen
Program Booklet
You can delve into the details of Abraham’s Feast by browsing the program booklet, which I designed, to be handed out to the audience. The box below the program also opens to reveal the comprehensive list of cast and crew behind the production.
Cast & Crew
Abraham’s Feast in Media
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