Finnish National Opera and Ballet

This guide to the Finnish National Opera and Ballet in Helsinki opens on its premiere night, November 30, 1993, when protesters stood in the snow outside objecting to the bill for the new white marble house on Toolonlahti Bay. It goes back to the 1976 design competition won by three young architects for a building nicknamed Scalapuikko, and through eighteen years of stalled funding, a construction boom, and a recession that pushed the opening back further still. Rumors circulated backstage that dozens of musicians and singers might be cut to balance the books.