Carla Huhtanen

Canadian-born Carla Huhtanen is praised by audiences for her “vivid, fine-toned, accurately placed coloratura” (Independent), and her “gorgeous toned soprano of immense vocal flexibility” (Globe and Mail). Recent and upcoming performances include Vivier’s Lonely Child with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno di Ulisse and Handel’s The Resurrection with Opera Atelier, Boulez’s le soleil des eaux with Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Konstanze in The Abduction from the Seraglio with Opera Columbus,and a Bernstein Tribute with the RTÉ Orchestra (Dublin) with John Wilson.

Carla debuted in Italy at Gran Teatro la Fenice as Daisy Park in Gershwin’s Lady, Be Good! and returned to La Fenice as Athenaïs in Cherubini’s Anacréon. In the UK, she was Lisetta in Garsington Opera’s La Gazzetta (Rossini) and returned as Serpetta in their production of Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, a performance repeated at the Barbican Centre’s Mostly Mozart series. Active in France, she has sung the title role of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for festival mars en baroque (Provence tour) and Angelica in Handel’s Orlando for Théatre Gyptis (Marseille), at 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 she was featured soloist in a Leonard Bernstein Tribute with the Israel Philharmonic. Other highlights include Cunegonde in Candide with the BBC Concert Orchestra and at the Valletta Festival in Malta. She was soloist with the Royal Philharmonic and the Welsh National Opera Orchestra with Carl Davis for a concert tour of the UK and Germany.

A favourite at Toronto’s Opera Atelier, she has sung leading roles in Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Der Freischütz, The Magic Flute, the Monteverdi operas, and toured both Lully’s Armide and Persée to the Royal Theatre at Versailles. In recent seasons, she returned to OA for Don Giovanni (2019) and subsequently their acclaimed, digital production of Handel’s The Resurrection in 2021.

As a leading interpreter of modern and contemporary music, Carla performs regularly with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Soundstreams Canada, Music on Main (Vancouver) and Tapestry Opera. She recently toured with the Toronto Symphony in le soleil des eaux by Pierre Boulez, in which “her soprano spoke clearly throughout her range and lent itself beautifully to Boulez’s ebbs and flows, bursting out of the orchestra’s colorful splashes and acting as a shimmering extension of upward-reaching choral waves…” (bachtrack.com). Carla recently joined Soundstreams for Love Songs (2021), a digital stream featuring the music of Claude Vivier and Christopher Mayo which subsequently toured across the U.K., and an upcoming release featuring Vivier’s Musik fur das Ende.

With Tapestry, Carla appeared in Tables:Turned, The Shadow and Rocking Horse Winner, and with Soundstreams, in Cage/Saariaho, Reich, Tan Dun and Unsuk Chin concerts. She works closely with composers to develop and premiere new Canadian works, and also sings the music of Crumb, Scelsi, Leroux, Dusapin, Adès and Knussen.

Other concert performances include Mass in B Minor, Messiah, Carmina Burana, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Five Images after Sappho with the Kitchener-Waterloo and Kingston Symphonies and Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Moravec’s The Blizzard Voices with Opera Omaha. Carla’s love for chamber music has led to fruitful collaborations with Tafelmusik, the Gryphon Trio, Standing Wave, and the Art of Time Ensemble.

Chandos records recently released a Vaughan-Williams compendium CD featuring Carla. It was nominated for two Grammy Awards (winning for Producer of the Year) and also won a Juno Award for Best Classical Album – Large Ensemble.

January 2024

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Dean Artists represents Carla Huhtanen in North America.

Carla Huhtanen - soprano · Carla Huhtanen, soprano

“Huhtanen’s voice is quite breathtaking – the clarity of tone and smoothness of line is matched only by her exquisite acting.”

— [Tapestry New Opera, Rocking Horse] Opera Now Magazine, Matthew Peacock

“Soprano Carla Huhtanen gave the evening’s most memorable performance. She sang with a soaring, translucent soprano that produced – in its highest register – notes of glistening weightlessness.” [Opera Omaha, The Blizzard Voices] World-Herald, John Pitcher

The three sopranos — Meghan Lindsay as Donna Anna, Carla Huhtanen as Donna Elvira and Mireille Asselin as Zerlina — equal the best Mozart interpreters anywhere in the world. Huhtanen also has a particular gift for physical comedy, which works well with director (and company co-artistic director) Marshall Pynkoski’s commedia dell’arte esthetic. [Opera Atelier, Don Giovanni, Toronto Star, John Terauds].

A powerful and eloquent presence.

Opera Canada, Wayne Gooding. The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Atelier.

“Charging out of the gate with a bang instead of a whimper, the Canadian ensemble, along with Carla Huhtanen and the Wiener Singakademie, opened with Boulez’s Le Soleil des eaux. Hutanen’s soprano spoke clearly throughout her range and lent itself beautifully to Boulez’s ebbs and flows, bursting out of the orchestra’s colorful splashes and acting as shimmering extension of upward-reaching choral waves, particularly in the transparent, intimate first movement ‘Complainte du lézard amoureux.’ The dramatic second movement, ‘La Sorgue,’ featured various vocal techniques from soloist and choir, who whispered, nagged and declaimed brilliantly…”
[Toronto Symphony Orchestra] Bachtrack.com, Chanda VanderHart

“Huhtanen consistently brings down the house with her wry humour and immaculate vocal technique.”

Opera News, Christopher Hoile