Topi Lehtipuu

The Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu was born in 1971 in Brisbane, Australia, and grew up in Tampere, Finland. At the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki he studied piano, violin, choral conducting, and voice, while at the same time taking up all sorts of other artistic activities. Lehtipuu was vocalist and violinist in the rock band Höyry-kone, performed as an actor, participated as a voice actor and singer in animated films, and produced Finnish versions of Disney films. In 1999 Lehtipuu made his debut as Britten’s Albert Herring at the Finnish National Opera in Vantaa  and as Tamino in Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, where he currently resides. His repertoire ranges from early music through Mozart and bel canto to modernist classics and works of the present. For example, he was part of the ensemble that gave the world premieres of Peter Eötvös’s Die Tragödie des Teufels at the Bavarian Staatsoper and of Helmut Oehring’s Aschemond at the Berlin Staatsoper. Lehtipuu has worked with such conductors as Ivor Bolton, William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Emmanuelle Haïm, Riccardo Muti, Simon Rattle, and Christophe Rousset. In the summer of 2014 he performed Tamino in Aix-en-Provence under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado, and in spring 2015 he will appear in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia under René Jacobs at the Theater an der Wien and in Brussels. Lehtipuu appears on DVD in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Glyndebourne Festival, Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival, and Gluck’s Ezio (awarded the ECHO Klassik in 2012); his Vivaldi CD Arie per tenore won the Diapason d’Or. As a manager, Lehtipuu led the Joroinen Music Days from 2004 to 2010 and the Turku Music Festival from 2010 to 2013.

August 2014