The Last Temptations
1975 opera composed by Joonas Kokkonen
The Last Temptations (Finnish: Viimeiset kiusaukset) is an opera in two acts by Joonas Kokkonen to a libretto by Lauri Kokkonen. Along with Leevi Madetoja's Pohjalaisia and Aarre Merikanto's Juha, it is considered one of the most important Finnish operas. The opera deals with the life of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century folk preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen. Kokkonen worked on the opera for 16 years before finishing the work. It was premiered in Helsinki by the Finnish National Opera in 1975.
The opera consists of two acts divided in 14 scenes. The combining element of the work is the hymn number 382 in the current Finnish hymnal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, My Lord, my God in all distress (Finnish: Sinuhun turvaan Jumala) (382) which is a reoccurring theme throughout the opera. A chorus containing the whole hymn concludes the opera.
Performances
After the premiere, the opera has already had almost three hundred performances. Finnish National Opera toured with the work in seven cities abroad – including at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Last Temptations” as 1975 opera composed by Joonas Kokkonen. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1975 opera composed by Joonas Kokkonen. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4413325. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Last Temptations” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.