The world of opera and concert has recently been paying increasing attention to the astounding talent of tenor TOPI LEHTIPUU. Born in Finland, resident in Paris, he studied piano and violin at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and later choral directing and singing. Among his teachers were Peter Lindroos and Howard Crook. He made his stage debut in the title role of Britten's Albert Herring at the Finnish National Opera and then appeared as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. He soon performed at the Savonlinna Opera Festival and made a stunning role debut as Belmonte at the FNO in Helsinki.

The major Mozart tenor roles are now a central part of his repertoire, as well as the works of Monteverdi, Rameau, and Handel. The tenor is active on the early-music scene, working under the batons of René Jacobs at the Innsbruck Early Music Festival and the Berliner Staatsoper, with William Christie in Rameau's Les Paladins at the Châtelet in Paris; and with Christophe Rousset - lately in period performances of Mozart's Entführung aus dem Serail.

Lehtipuu's extensive concert repertoire includes numerous oratorios and cantatas from Bach to Monteverdi as well as 20th-century music by such composers as Rautavaara, Schoenberg, and Pärt, to name but a few. He has sung in concerts and toured in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Spain, and Japan, performing with Michel Corboz and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne or under other renowned conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Peter Schreier, William Christie, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, with whom he has recorded several of the Haydn masses (Philips).

In Germany, Lehtipuu has appeared with both the RIAS Kammerchor and the Berliner Akademie für Alte Musik, at the Dresden Music Festival, at both the Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie in Berlin, including Renard by Igor Stravinsky with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle (2005). Lehtipuu made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with two concerts (Mozart's Mass in C minor and Ariodante), and he has already been reinvited for a production of Zaïde in 2006.

09/06