Photo: Ville Paasimaa

Marjukka Tepponen

Already as a 5-year-old, the Finnish soprano, Marjukka Tepponen, started taking her first piano
lessons. She later studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and in Vienna and rapidly went on to
achieve success at singing contests, such as the International Mirjam Helin Contest in Helsinki and the
contest in Lappeenranta, where she won first prize.
Following her spectacular debut in La traviata at the opera in Jyväskylä in 2009, she was engaged by
the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, where she stays a regular guest performer in important roles.
Roles at the FNO included Corinna/Il viaggio a Reims, Fiordiligi/Così fan tutte, Woglinde/Das
Rheingold, Elisabetta/Don Carlo, Mimì/La bohème, Violetta/La traviata, as well as the main roles in
the world premieres of the Finnish operas “Jää” (J. Kuusisto) and “Indigo” (Toppinen/Kivilaakso), and
most recently her debut as Nedda/Pagliacci.
Furthermore, Tepponen is a regular guest at the renowned Savonlinna Opera Festival, where she
performed the roles of Pamina/Die Zauberflöte, Marguerite/Faust, and Mozart’s Mass in c minor,
among others.
Highlights of the past seasons include her debut at the MET as Tatyana/Eugene Onegin, her debut as
Contessa/Le nozze di Figaro in Turku (Finland), her debut as Donna Anna/Don Giovanni as well as
Mimì/La bohème in Rijeka (Croatia), the latter she sang at Opera Graz as well, Fiordiligi/Così fan tutte
and Tatyana/Eugene Onegin at the Seattle Opera, her Micaela/Carmen in Tampere, as well as her
successful debut as Liù/Turandot at the Bregenz Festival, led by Paolo Carignani and staged by Marco
Arturo Marelli.
On the concert stage she performed Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Munich Symphony
Orchestra, a film music program with the Münchner Rundunkorchester led by Ulf Schirmer, Rossini’s
Stabat Mater, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater (under Christoph König), as well as Uuno Klami’s Psalmus (under
the baton of Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez), all with the RTVE in Madrid, a concertante version of
Eugene Onegin/Tatyana with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lissabon, Sibelius’ Kullervo with the Lahti
Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki, Beethoven’s Mass in c minor in Tampere, and recitals with the pianist
Marita Viitasalo in Finland.

Most recently she could be heard with Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder with the Gothenburg Symphony
Orchestra.
Engagements of the season 2021/22 include her return to the Seattle Opera as Contessa/Le nozze di
Figaro and the Savonlinna Opera Festival as Micaela/Carmen, and her debut in the title role of
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Opera Frankfurt as well as in the postponed production at Opera Graz,
where she will also be making her debut in the title role of Katia Kabanova.
Future projects bring her, once more, to Savonlinna (as Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette) and
the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki for a scenic production of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem.
Marjukka Tepponen can be heard on several CD recordings, including a recording of Gounod’s
Faust/Marguerite at the Rijeka Opera under Ville Matvejeff (Naxos, 2019) and an Aria Album with
Mozart, Bel Canto, and French repertoire.