Finnish soprano Tuuli Takala was born in Helsinki and studied singing, violin and music education at the Sibelius Academy in her home city. She made her professional opera debut in 2013 at the Finnish National Opera as the Queen of the Night in W.A. Mozart’s The Magic Flute. She returned to Helsinki in 2014 as Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and in 2021 as Violetta Valéry (La traviata).

 She has been a permanent member of the Semperoper Dresden ensemble since 2015, where she has in roles such as Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Gilda (Rigoletto), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Micaëla (Carmen), Capriccio Singer, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Marzelline (Fidelio), Die Königin der Nacht and, since the 19/20 season, also as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Susanna, Waldvogel (Siegfried), Olympia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), La Contessa di Folleville (Il viaggio a Reims), Echo (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Valencienne (Die lustige Witwe).

 In the current season, she will make her role debut as Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the Semperoper and take on the role of Mimì in La Bohéme. She will also sing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Yleisradio Oy (Yle) / Radio Symphony Orchestra Helsinki as part of a symphony concert in Finland.

In the 2023/24 season, Tuuli Takala made her role debut at the Semperoper as Adina (L’elisir d’amore) and was again seen as Lucia, Pamina and embodied the role of Teresa in the new production of Hector Berlioz’ Benvenuto Cellini. She also made her role debuts as Mimì (La bohème) at the Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole and as Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) at the Finnish National Opera.

Guest appearances in recent seasons have taken her to the Hamburg State Opera as Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), to the Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole as Violetta Valéry, to Zurich Opera as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and to Tampere Opera as Pamina and Amanda Rossi in the world premiere of Olli Kortekangas’ Veljeni Vartija. In 2021, she made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival as the Flower Girl (Parsifal) and returned to the 2022 Festival as the Shepherd (Tannhäuser). Other guest engagements have taken her to the Savonlinna Opera Festival as Pamina, Gilda (Rigoletto), Marguerite (Faust) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni), to all three Berlin opera houses as Queen of the Night, to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, to the Volksoper Vienna, the Aalto Theater Essen and Opéra de Toulon.

Tuuli Takala is an award-winning artist who won 1st prize at the Timo Mustakallio and Kangasniemi singing competitions in Finland in 2013, prizes at the 2015 Belvedere Competition in Amsterdam and the Arnold Schönberg Center Prize at the 2013 Hilde Zadek Competition in Vienna. In 2014, she was named Young Musician of the Year by the Pro Musica Foundation in Finland and was awarded the Curt Taucher Sponsorship Prize by the Semperoper Dresden in 2018.

 In the 2022/23 season, Tuuli Takala appeared on the concert platform as a soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen and in the world premiere of Olli Kortekangas’ new song cycle Songs of Meena with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä. She also sang in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Dalia Stasevska and performed in Mahler’s 8th Symphony (Mater Gloriosa) with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under Ingo Metzmacher at the Hanover Art Festival. Her other concert repertoire includes the Requiem, Exsultate jubilate and the Mass in C minor by Mozart, Ein deutsches Requiem by Brahms, Handel’s Messiah, Poulenc’s Gloria, Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle, and the Passions, the Mass in B minor and the Christmas Oratorio by J.S. Bach. In 2017, Takala performed as a soprano soloist with the Dresdner Staatskapelle under Christian Thielemann in the ZDF Advent concert in Dresden’s Frauenkirche.

She is also active as a Lied interpreter and has performed in concerts and recitals in Finland, London, Vienna and Tokyo.