Carla Huhtanen
Soprano Carla Huhtanen, combining vocal brilliance and an alluring stage persona, is in demand internationally for an enviable mix of repertoire. In the U.K., she debuted as Lisetta in Garsington Opera’s La Gazzetta (Rossini) and later sang Serpetta in the their production of Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, a performance repeated at the Barbican Centre’s Mostly Mozart series. She debuted in Italy at Gran Teatro la Fenice in Venice as Daisy Park in Gershwin’s Lady, Be Good! and was invited back for a complete change of pace as Athenaïs in Cherubini’s Anacréon, In France, she sang the title role of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for festival mars en baroque (Marseille, Tarascon and Aix-en-Provence) and Angelica in Handel’s Orlando for festival musique au coeur (Antibes) and festival de Chartres. A reprise performance of Lady, Be Good! took her to Lisbon’s Teatro Sao Carlos and that same year she was featured soloist in a Leonard Bernstein Tribute with the Israel Philharmonic. She has been praised for her “vivid, fine-toned, accurately placed coloratura” (Independent), and her “clarity of tone and smoothness of line…matched only by her exquisite acting” (Opera Now)
Past highlights include Cunegonde in Candide with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London and also for the Valletta Festival in Malta and a concert tour of festivals in the UK and Germany with the Royal Philharmonic and the Welsh National Orchestra with Carl Davis. With Opera Atelier she sang Monteverdi’s Minerva/Amor, Drusilla/Fortuna and Mozart’s Blonde and a tour of Charpentier’s Actéon and Dido and Aeneas in Seoul, South Korea. She was named one of Now Magazine’s Top Ten Theatre Artistsof 2008.
Much in demand as an interpreter of modern and contemporary music, Ms. Huhtanen performs with Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, Continuum New Music and Tapestry New Opera where she premieres many roles in their Opera To Go and Opera Briefs performances. Carla recently appeared in Ana Sokolovic’s Svadba with Queen of Puddings, in Orlando/Lunaire with Opera Erratica, and in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of Dreams at the Music Gallery, Toronto. Other performances include Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Five Images after Sappho with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Moravec’s The Blizzard Voices with Opera Omaha. Chamber music concerts include music by Karin Rehnqvist, Philippe Leroux, and Giacinto Scelsi.
Carla has been teaching privately since 1996 and has given masterclasses and private coachings at the University of Toronto, the Royal Conservatory of Music and l'Université de Montréal, also offering workshops to composers in writing for the voice.
Carla was nominated for a 2010 Dora Award as Susanna in Opera Atelier’s The Marriage of Figaro, and will return as Zerlina in their 2011 production on Don Giovanni and as Phénice/Lucinde in Lully’s Armide in 2012 . She looks forward to joining the voice faculty at the University of Western Ontario in 2011.
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