Tuomas Miettola: Nature against humans and their irresponsibility

It’s a great honor to tell the Chernobyl story. All of us know that an enormous natural disaster happened in 1986 that has affected the nearby environment for all the years since. Active and serious talk about nuclear power and its safety started after that disaster. “How is the globe going to find its feet after this catastrophe?” is still an important topic nowadays, when the world has been struck by the coronavirus.

When I read the impressive libretto written by Glenda Dawn Goss, my first impressions were, how could those human characters be so blind about the impact of their actions? They seem to be more interested about own status in their workplace rather than disaster’s impact on nature. Sadness also came through for me from the libretto text. The libretto is not complex; words have been selected carefully by the librettist so that audience can follow not only what is happening but also the background of the story.

The text is full of realistic conversation between human characters, but also includes poetic elements such as conversations between three voices of the river or the animal characters. The main theme, I think, is “nature against humans and their irresponsibility”, but the  libretto also includes drama between the four main characters Lana, Max, Allura, and Slykovitch. They are mixing up things with irreversible results because they have intimate emotions, different outlooks, and different statuses in their workplace. 

Tuomas Miettola 7.5.2020
The author plays the part of Maksym Smirnov (Max) in the opera All the Truths We Cannot See – A Chernobyl Story.