Tuomas Katajala

Biography

Tuomas Katajala is one of the most versatile and sought after Scandinavian tenors and makes remarkable career equally in the opera, oratorio, concert and lied genres. In autumn 2017 Katajala made his house debut at Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Tamino (The Magic Flute).

Engagements of the season 2021/2022 includes among others Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) at the Bolshoi Theatre (new production; conductor Tugan Sokhiev); a new production and French premiere of Braunfelss’s Die Vögel (Hoffegut) at Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg; Alfred Schnittke’s Faust Kantate (concerts at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Roma under the button of Antonio Pappano); J.S. Bach St. John Passion (Evangelist) at Gulbenkian Lissabon (with Potsdam Kammerakademie, conductor Antonello Manacorda).

The season 2019/20 include Loge (Das Rheingold) at Finnish National with Esa-Pekka Salonen, Max (Der Freischütz) at Grand Théâtre Luxembourg, concert and recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Malmö with Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Robert Trevino, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, the title role of Mozart’s Idomeneo new production at The Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv with conductor Michele Gamba and director Kasper Holten, Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni, new production) at Finnish National Opera and J.S. Bach’s John Passion in Gulbenkian Main Auditorium Lisbon with maestro Michel Corboz.

Engagements in the season 2018/19 Katajala sang, among others, an European tour of Der Freischütz (Max) at Théâtre de Caen, Aix-en-Provence Grande Théâtre, Brüssel Bozar, Theatre an der Wien, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and Tamino (The Magic Flute) at Opéra de Lille.

In the season 2017/18 after London Royal Opera debut he sang also, among others, Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Komische Oper Berlin, Ferrando (Cosi fan tutte) at the Seattle Opera and Tamino (The Magic Flute) at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

In autumn 2015 Katajala made his critically acclaimed debut at Glyndebourne Tour Opera as Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.

Katajala has sang also at Teatro Nacional de sao Carlos Lisbon as Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress), Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Komische Oper Berlin, Osman (Almira) at Staatsoper Hamburg, Ernesto (Don Pasquale), Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Henry Morosus (Die Schweigsame Frau) at Oslo Opera House, Ernesto (Don Pasquale) at Netherlands Reisopera, Ferrando (Cosi fan tutte) at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Prince Leopold (La Juive) at Gothenburg Opera, David (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Lensky (Eugene Onegin), Tamino (The Magic Flute) and Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress) at the Finnish National Opera and Tamino (The Magic Flute), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serial) at the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

Tuomas Katajala made his stage debut in 2006 at the Savonlinna Opera Festival as Tamino in The Magic Flute which followed immediately house debut in Finnish national Opera as Count Libenskof in Il viaggio a Reims. Katajala has been a member of the ensemble of Finnish National Opera from 2009 until the end of the season 2013/14 where he performed roles like Count Almaviva, Don Ramiro, Count Libenskof, Nemorino, Ernesto, Tamino, Don Ottavio, Ferrando, Fenton, Rinuccio and Albert Herring.

Tuomas Katajala makes also remerkable career as a concert and oratorio singer. He has over 100 pieces on his concert and oratorio repertory ingluding the major works of J.S. Bach, G.F. Händel, W.A. Mozart, J. Haydn, F. Mendelssohn and G. Rossini. He has performed at several music festivals like La Folle Journee au Japan festival in Tokyo, Annecy Classic Festival and D’Auvers sur Oise festival in France, Kuhmo Chamber Music festival and also at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris and Avery Fisher Hall in New York.

Highlights of the recent concerts include Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer at Accademia Nazioale di Santa Cecilia in Roma with Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Mikko Frank, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 at Leieiszhalle Hamburg with Symphoniker Hamburg and Eivind Gullberg Jensen and also Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Oslo Concert Hall with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Klaus Mäkelä, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at Helsinki Music Centre with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu, Mahler´s Das Lied von der Erde in Tokyo with Daisuke Muranaka and AfiA Symphony Orchestra, Penderecki’s The Polish Requiem at National Music Auditorium Madrid with Spanish National Orchestra and Antoni Wit, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at Porvoo Art Hall with Avanti Chamber Orchestra and Matthias Pintscher.

He has worked with Kent Nagano, Matthias Pintscher, Enrique Mazzola, Andrew Lawrence-King, Peter Schreier, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sakari Oramo, Mikko Franck, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir. David Wilcocks, Roy Goodman, Carsten Schmidt, Sebastien Rouland, Christopher Warren-Green, John Storgåds, Antonino Fogliani, Leif Segerstam, Michael Güttler, Hannu Lintu, Pietro Rizzo and Howard Arman.

Katajala studied at the Sibelius-Academy in Helsinki and continued his studies at the Udo Reinemann’s International Lied Masterclass at the Consevatory of Amsterdam as well as Alberto Zedda’s Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro.

Katajala was awarded the Benianimo Gigli Prize, Martti Talvela Stipend, Karita Mattila Prize and the Sibelius Birthplace Medal. He has won the first prize in Musica Sacra international competition in Rome and second prize in Gösta Windbergh competition in Stockholm.

In 2021 he made his debut at the Bolshoi Theatre as Don Ottavio in a new production of Don Giovanni (conductor Tugan Sokhiev, director Semyon Spivak).