Carla Huhtanen
Carla Huhtanen graduated from the Universities of Ottawa and Toronto. She won the Poulenc Prize from Les Journées de la Musique Française in Montreal as well as coming first place in the First International Yrjö Kilpinen Art Song Competition and reaching the semi finals of the North American Poulenc Plus Competition. Her teachers have included Yvonne Minton, Sherman Lowe and Lorna MacDonald.
Carla’s operatic roles include Soeur Constance in Dialogues des Carmelites, Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. She has sung Athenaïs in Cherubini’s Anacreon and Daisy Park in Gershwin’s Lady, be Good at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, repeating the latter role at the Teatro de Sao Carlos in Lisbon. UK appearances have included Despina in Cosi fan Tutte at the Orford Arts Festival and, to huge critical acclaim, Lisetta in Rossini’s La Gazzetta and Serpetta in La Finta Giardiniera for Garsington Opera. In 2003, whilst studying at the Centre National d’Insertion Professionelle des Artistes Lyriques in Marseille, she performed Adele in Die Fledermaus and Therèse in Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias. An active proponent of new composition, Carla works closely with Tapestry New Opera in developing and performing new works, most recently in Omar Daniel’s The Shadow.
Carla is equally at home on the concert stage, and regularly performs in Canada at Roy Thomson Hall, the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts and the Glenn Gould Studio. Her repertoire ranges from solo recitals of Scandinavian Art Song to contemporary music premieres. International engagements have included concert performances in Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Carla can be heard on the Juno award-winning Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage on Warner Records, as well as in A Room of One’s Own and Stephen and Mr. Wilde– productions for the Shaw Festival and the Great Canadian Theatre Company respectively. Carla has recently recorded the role of Bo-Peep in Babes in Toyland with London Sinfonietta for EMI.
Other appearances have included Angelica in Handel’s Orlando,Cunegonde in Bernstein’s Candide in Malta and for the BBC at the Barbican in London, and the title role in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in Marseille, Antibes and Aix-en-Provence, Wiener Blut for Toronto Operetta Theatre, Costanza La Griselda for Opera in Concert (Toronto) and a series of contemporary operas for Tapestry Opera Works.
Recent highlights include Handel’s Orlando with Festival de Chartres in France, Cunegonde in Candide for Toronto Operetta Theatre, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte for Opera Atelier, concerts with the Grand River Baroque Festival (Ontario) and Orchestra London (Canada) and a series of Bernstein on Broadway concerts with Carl Davis in Germany and the UK.
Promoters please note: if you wish to include this biography in a concert programme etc, please contact Hazard Chase to ensure that you receive the most up to date version.
Email: Kate Baylis
