ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the staging of La Juive in the radicalising cultural context of Finland in the 1920s fuelled with national anxieties over recently gained independence and civil war. The driving force behind the production was Wäinö Sola (1883–1961), a lyric tenor, who not only performed the role of Eléazar, but also adapted and translated the libretto and directed the opera, displaying several anti-Semitic stereotypes on stage that resonated with the current cultural debate about the Jewish question in Finland. Sola’s version downplays the critique of Christian fanaticism emphasising only that of Eléazar.
