Northern voices are increasingly heard in contemporary Finnish opera. In recent operas by Outi Tarkiainen and Cecilia Damström, the Sámi language and the yoik have found their way onto the operatic stage. At the same time, the composers are forced to ask: how do you compose an opera from a Sámi world?

How can a Sámi vocal tradition become part of opera – a genre born in a completely different musical context? In Sámi musical culture, melodies, people, and places are intertwined, sometimes even different manifestations of the same essence. This stands in contrast to the Western art music tradition, where music is often treated as a distinct and autonomous aesthetic form.

Outi Tarkiainen did not attempt to resolve this challenge alone. She has spoken about receiving first-hand guidance on yoik traditions and archival material from the Sámi poet and musician Niillas Holmberg. Holmberg helped her find suitable yoiks to characterize the different roles. At the same time, Tarkiainen has been open about her uncertainty. She has reflected extensively on questions of cultural appropriation and on her own position as a non-Sámi composer. At one point, she even asked Holmberg whether the composer should be Sámi instead. Holmberg responded with warm laughter.

A first glimpse of the opera was heard in January 2026, when the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra premiered Day Night Day, a work that incorporates the opening preludes of the opera’s first two acts. The prelude also introduced musical material associated with the main character, based on an authentic yoik. This yoik, in turn, commemorates a woman who died in childbirth during the Second World War.

Watch the Berliner Philharmoniker perform Day Night Day, conducted by Marin Alsop.

Facing the music

A similar awareness is present in Cecilia Damström’s opera Ovllá (pictured in the main image). Damström has described one of her greatest shocks as realising the extent of racism and discrimination the Sámi have faced and continue to face. Writing a large-scale stage work for soloists, choir, and orchestra had long been her ambition, but she also knew she was entering sensitive territory.

Damström has described one of her greatest shocks as realising the extent of racism and discrimination the Sámi have faced and continue to face.

For that reason, the work was created in close collaboration with Sámi artists. All the yoiks in the opera were composed by Emil Kárlsen, who also performs the leading role. In Ovllá, yoik is not merely a timbral element but an integral part of the narrative. Kárlsen’s yoiks are woven into the fabric of the composition, forming a central expressive layer that both respects Sámi cultural heritage and brings its voice into the shared musical language of opera.

Watch the trailer for Ovllá

Encounters between yoik and opera

Pessi Jouste, one of the two composers of the opera Giellavealgu (“The Language Switcher”), faced a different kind of challenge. As a Sámi composer, Jouste had to confront the opposite question: how do you write an opera about a Sámi world when the cast consists entirely of Finnish singers and the audience largely represents the majority culture? In the children’s opera, Jouste addressed this by deliberately writing what is, in a sense, Western music about a northern subject.

In these new operas, the focus is not merely on northern themes or orchestral colours inspired by Arctic landscapes. The creators themselves are compelled to reflect on their own position in relation to the subject. This marks a shift in Finnish opera, where such questions were rarely posed in the past.

In these new operas, the focus is not merely on northern themes or orchestral colours inspired by Arctic landscapes.

Sámi-themed operas are, in fact, quite rare. Armas Launis’s opera Aslak Hetta (1922/1930) was first performed more than seventy years after it was completed. Launis used yoiks he had collected himself as musical material for the work, though not as direct quotations.

The encounter between yoik and opera is therefore a fascinating one. It forces opera to confront a different understanding of music, one in which songs, people, and places are inseparably connected.