Susanna Mälkki... channeled her Saariaho expertise through the Met players.
“Susanna Mälkki, who conducted the premiere of “Innocence” at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France, channeled her Saariaho expertise through the Met players, unafraid of an initial quiet that, with fresh narrative twists, gave way to the unsettling alarm of downwardly sliding strings and shocking eruptions from the full ensemble.”
“Under Susanna Mälkki, closely associated with the score since its first performances, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra maintained a finely calibrated balance, allowing the score’s intricate layering to register clearly while preserving its essential ambiguity.”