JOHANNA RUSANEN, soprano

 

Soprano Johanna Rusanen made her Master of Music degree at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. She also studied singing in Berlin and Vienna.

Johanna won the Timo Mustakallio singing contest in Savonlinna in 1995 and Lappeenranta singing competition in 1996.
In 2001 Johanna received the Karita Mattila Prize.

For the period 1998-2000 she sang in the young artists program of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Johanna Rusanen’s opera carrier began in Kuopio opera 1994 and since then she has visited the Savonlinna Opera Festival, the Finnish National Opera, the Berlin Deutsche Oper, Nilsiä’s Cava Opera Festival, Opera in Vantaa and Turku, the Central Finland Regional Opera and the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow at the Savonlinna Opera Festival productions.

Her main roles include among others Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Wozzeck’s Marie, Amelia in Ballo di Maschera, Mimi in La Boheme, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Faust’s Margaret, first woman in the Magic Flute, 1. Woman in The Last Temptation and Anja in Merikanto’s Juha. She also sang the female lead role in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium, in premiere of Paavo Nurmi opera, which was televised across Europe 2000.

In recent years, Johanna Rusanen has become known specifically as an interpreter for roles of strong women of Finnish operas. Of these, the best known is Riitta in Kokkonen’s Last Temptation, in Nivala (2009), Sallinen’s Ratsumies in the Savonlinna Opera Festival (2005-2006) and Aalo in the Wolf Bride by Pylkkänen at the Wolf Tone event in Helsinki Cable Factory, 2006.
Johanna Rusanen has performed as well as an oratorio soloist, and given lied recitals in numerous European countries and additionally in Japan, Chile, the United States and North Korea.

In Finland, Johanna Rusanen is a popular concert and television performer. Her unusually diverse repertoire includes traditional opera and lieder literature but also operettas, musicals, movie tunes and jazz standards. She has performed with Leningrad Cowboys, Sakari Kuosmanen, Kari Tapio, Trio Töykeiden, Piirpauke and the Lenni-Kalle Taipale-trio.

 

 Impressum