Finnish soprano Tuuli Takala was born in Helsinki and studied voice, violin and music education at the Sibelius Academy in her hometown. She made her professional debut in 2013 at the Finnish National Opera as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, which subsequently became one of her most performed and celebrated roles. In 2014 she returned to the Finnish National Opera as Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro). Since 2015, she has been an ensemble member of the Semperoper Dresden where she has performed roles such as Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Gilda (Rigoletto), Micaëla (Carmen), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), the Queen of the Night and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Marzelline (Fidelio), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Waldvogel (Siegfried), Olympia (Les contes d’Hoffmann), La Contessa di Folleville (Il viaggio a Reims), Valencienne (Die lustige Witwe) and Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail).

In the current season 2022/23 Tuuli Takala performs as La Contessa di Folleville and Pamina at the Semperoper Dresden, and in the Autumn 2022 she can be heard on the concert podium as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Eva Ollikainen, and in concerts featuring the world premiere of Olli Kortekangas’ new song cycle ’Songs of Meena’ with the Helsinki Philharmonic under Osmo Vänskä. In May 2023 she is scheduled to return from maternity leave first as soprano soloist in Carmina Burana with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Dalia Stasevska, and then in Mahler’s 8th Symphony (Mater Gloriosa) with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under Ingo Metzmacher at the Kunstfestspiele Hannover. In the summer of 2023 she will return to the Savonlinna Opera Festival as Pamina. The remainder of the season she is on maternity leave.

Highlights from recent seasons include Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) for Oper Zürich, Konstanze in a new production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Staatsoper Hamburg, Violetta Valéry (La Traviata) for the Finnish National Opera and the Opéra-Theatre de Metz in France, Lucia di Lammermoor for Semperoper Dresden, Königin der Nacht (Die Zauberflöte) for London Royal Opera House Covent Garden, as well as La Contessa di Folleville (Il Viaggio a Reims) for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and for Semperoper Dresden.

Her further repertoire includes roles such as Marguerite (Faust), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Fiordiligi (Cosí fan tutte) and Musetta (La Bohème). Guest engagements have taken her to the London Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, all three Berlin opera houses, the Volksoper Wien, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Oper Zürich, Staatsoper Hamburg, Oper Essen, Bayreuther Festspiele, Opéra de Toulon, Opéra-Théâtre de Metz and to the Finnish National Opera, Tampere Opera and the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland.

Tuuli Takala is an award-winning artist with 1st Prizes from both the Timo Mustakallio and Kangasniemi singing competitions in Finland 2013, prizes from the 2015 Belvedere Competition in Amsterdam, and the Arnold Schönberg Center Prize from the 2013 Hilde Zadek competition in Vienna. In 2014 the Pro Musica Foundation in Finland named her Young Musician of the Year, and in 2018 the Semperoper Dresden awarded her the Curt Taucher Förderpreis.

Tuuli Takala collaborates regularly with musicians such as Philippe Auguin, Frédéric Chaslin, Ádám Fischer, Vladimir Jurowski, Susanna Mälkki, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, John Storgårds, Christian Thielemann and Omer Meir Wellber, among others. Her versatile concert repertoire includes Requiem, Exsultate jubilate and the Mass in c minor by Mozart, Ein deutsches Requiem by Brahms, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Händel’s Messiah, Poulenc’s Gloria, Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, and J. S. Bach’s Passions, Mass in b minor and the Christmas Oratorio. She is also a passionate singer of lieder and art song and has performed in recitals and concerts across Finland and in London, Vienna and Tokyo among others. In 2017 Takala was featured as soprano soloist in the ZDF Advent Concert at Dresden’s Frauenkirche with Staatskapelle Dresden under the baton of Christian Thielemann.