Soile Isokoski

Wikipedia:

Soile Isokoski (born February 14, 1957) is a Finnish lyric soprano. She is an opera singer as well as a concert and lieder singer.

Career

Isokoski was born in Posio, Finland. She graduated from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (a cantor-organist diploma, a singing teacher's degree and a singing diploma) and made her concert debut there in 1986.

Isokoski won the Lappeenranta song competition in Finland (1987), the Elly Ameling Competition in the Netherlands (1988), and the Tokyo International Singing Competition (1990). In 1987 she won 2nd prize in the BBC Singer of the World competition in Cardiff.

She worked first as a church musician in Northern Finland. In 1987 she was engaged as a soloist with the Finnish National Opera and stayed there until 1994. Her first appearance there was as Mimi in Puccini's La bohème in 1987.

Isokoski has sung at all the leading opera houses in Europe, including the Vienna State Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Bastille, La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin State Opera, Semperoper, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Cologne Opera.

She made her début at the Metropolitan Opera as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro in 2002. The New York Times wrote on January 28, 2002: "Ms. Isokoski... touched on the Countess' sense of abandonment by the Count without diminishing her regal bearing or the graceful humor she must contribute to the second act. And her dark, burnished soprano should make her a good addition to the Met roster."

In 2007 Isokoski made her San Francisco Opera debut portraying the role of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. In 2010 she made her Los Angeles Opera debut as Elsa in Lohengrin.

She has also appeared at many festivals such as Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Chorégies d'Orange, The Proms in London, Tanglewood Music Festival and Savonlinna Opera Festival.

Isokoski's lied repertoire is extensive. She has given recitals with her regular accompanist Marita Viitasalo all over the world, including in New York, Washington, D.C., Fort Lauderdale, Vienna, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Rome, Athens, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Tokyo.

Isokoski has appeared with many renowned conductors including Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, James Conlon, Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Marek Janowski, Neeme Järvi, Okko Kamu, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Yehudi Menuhin, Riccardo Muti, Sakari Oramo, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Leif Segerstam, and Osmo Vänskä.

Roles

Recordings

CD

DVD

Awards and recognitions

Sources