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The Finnish soprano, Anna-Kristiina Kaappola, studied initially piano. When she entered Tampere (Finland) Conservatory in 1982 she also began studying voice with Reijo Toivoskoski. She began college-level studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 1987 with Aili Purtonen, and has remained as a student and a teacher in the opera department. In 1990 she was first prize at the Aberdeen Singing Competition. In 1991 she also won a first prize (Eero Rantala Foundation prize) in the Timo Mustakallio Singing Competition. She took third in the Lappeenrante Singing Competition of 1992, and won the special prize for modern vocal music in the 1994 Mirjam Helin Singing Competition. She obtained her Master of Music degree in singing from Sibelius Conservatory in 1995, and has attended master-classes with Birgit Nilsson, Peter Berne, Vera Rozsa, and Tom Krause. She received the Association of Finnish Operas of the opera soloist designation in 1995.
Anna-Kristiina Kaappola began appearing on-stage as a professional singer in 1992 at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Finland's best-known international operatic event and has appeared many times there since then. She received a contract as a soloist with the Finnish National Opera company in 1997 and has been an ensemble member since then.
Anna-Kristiina Kaappola sings high lyric and coloratura parts. Her early parts included the Celestial Voice in Verdi's Don Carlos, Young Pilgrim in Wagner's Tannhäuser, Annina in Verdi's La Traviata, the Fairy-Tale Prince and the Nightingale in Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortiléges, Frasquita in Georges Bizet's Carmen, Cissie Woodger in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring, the Falcon and Hüter der Schwelle in Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten, and the Lady-in-Waiting in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. As her career has developed she has portrayed Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust, Juliette in Romeo et Juliette, the Queen of the Night in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Constanze in W.A. Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and both Susanna in W.A. Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (after earlier having sung Barbarina in the same opera).
Anna-Kristiina Kaappola's brilliant interpretation as Queen of the Night in W.A. Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte has taken her all over Europe (La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London, Paris, Toulouse, Aix en Provence, Salzburg), and to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City (2007). A welcomed guest on the musical stages of Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Leipzig, she performs Konstanze, Adele, Zaïde, Galathea, or Gilda. In 2009, she debuted in New Orleans (Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra), and at the Weill Hall/Carnegie Hall in New York. Conductors in concert and opera have included Riccardo Muti (La Scala and Salzburg Festival), Jos van Immerseel (Anima eterna), Jean-Christophe Spinosi (Ensemble Matheus), Esa-Pekka Salonen (Helsinki Festival), Hans-Christoph Rademann (RIAS-Kammerchor), and René Jacobs (Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin).
Anna-Kristiina Kaappola is also an active recitalist and concert singer. She has developed a special interest in the more modern repertoire. She has recorded the soprano solo parts of the reconstruction of Alexander Scriabin's Prefatory Action under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy and the wordless instrumental part for soprano voice in the second movement of Nielsen's Third Symphony under the direction of Jukka-Pekka Salonen.
Planned concerts and recordings will take Anna-Kristiina Kaappola to Germany, France, Italy, and Finland. Role debuts as Alice Ford in Falstaff and Mrs.Wordsworth in B. Britten's Albert Herring (Helsinki) as well as Violetta in La Traviata (Vaasa) open new perspectives of her versatile performance. She currently lives in Helsinki, Finland. |
