For the first edition, 12 artists were selected from almost 300 applicants: composers, writers and directors were brought together to explore new ways of creating opera collaboratively. Previous experience in opera was not a requirement, opening the programme to artists from a wide range of backgrounds.

The selected artists developed their ideas together with professionals from different fields, resulting in four very different 20–25-minute operas that premiered in Helsinki in mid-August 2026.

The opening work, The Mouthpiece (music by Stephen James Webb, libretto by Susi Siriya Orenius, direction by Pelzi Peltola), immediately places the audience in an uncomfortable yet universally recognisable setting: a dentist’s waiting room. The opera begins and ends there, framed by that familiar mixture of anxiety and anticipation. At its centre is a young person whose poor dental health gradually reveals a wider socioeconomic reality. At the same time, the audience is taken on a surreal journey inside her mouth, where the Tooth Troll and the Tooth Fairy wage a battle of their own.

The setting gives the work an additional resonance: the Finnish National Opera and Ballet now stands on the site of a former sugar factory. (This historical connection also gave the Sugar Factory programme its name.)

The second work, The Request (music by Eeva Kontu, libretto by Jenna Viro, direction by Bálint Barcsai), pushes discomfort considerably further. Its libretto consciously tests how far an audience can be taken into disturbing territory and how quickly the meaning of what we see can change. A man enters a sex-robot shop apparently looking to buy a young boy, creating an immediate and deeply troubling expectation. It is eventually revealed that he is commissioning a child replica of himself in an attempt to confront sexual trauma from his own childhood. The revelation is emotionally powerful but offers no easy resolution. Despite its extreme subject matter, the work draws on recognisable operatic means of music, performance and storytelling to confront the audience with difficult questions about trauma, desire and healing.

The third opera, Emerge: Oops…life! (music by Miika Hyytiäinen, libretto by Ilmari Nera, direction by Anna-Maria Lipponen), moves furthest away from conventional operatic narration. Through an episodic structure, the experiences of three characters who witness a violent incident on the street unfold simultaneously, weaving together live action, on-stage filming and cinematic elements. The incident forces each of them to confront traumas from their own lives. A screen spanning the entire back of the stage is not simply a surface for projection but an integral part of the action and storytelling.

The fourth work, Love Is a Rebellious Bird (music by Sid Hille, libretto by Carmen Baltzar, direction by Sara Melleri and Carmen Baltzar), takes yet another route. Although the opera is based on Baltzar’s debut novel, its sung text consists of just a single sentence. Its title comes from the famous aria in Bizet’s Carmen, but the work returns to an older meaning of the name Carmen: poem and song, a means of passing on knowledge, stories and traditions. The production brings opera singers and members of the Romani community together on stage, including drag artist Roseta La León in the role of Carmen. In doing so, the work gives concrete form to Sugar Factory’s commitment to bringing new voices, identities and perspectives to the opera stage.

The greatest challenge for the audience was perhaps the sheer amount of weighty and provocative material packed into four short works. Musically, however, the project felt convincing. Each of the four scores had a distinct identity, even if they shared a certain eclecticism, perhaps reflecting a desire to respond directly to the action on stage – the most obvious example being the use of an actual drill to evoke the sound of dental work. Conductor Kaapo Ijas moved effortlessly between the different musical styles.

Most importantly, Sugar Factory succeeded in its central aim: the first edition produced four distinct approaches to what opera can be today.

Featured photo: Roseta La León in the role of Carmen.