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Juha Uusitalo

Biography

Juha Uusitalo began his music career as a solo flautist, performing with several Finnish orchestras. From 1995-98 he performed as a singer in many European opera houses. Uusitalo was a guest soloist at the Finnish National Opera 1998-99, and he joined as a permanent soloist in 2000. In 1999 Uusitalo received a scholarship from the Finnish Wagner Society and the Matti Salminen Fund, and he was awarded the prestigious Karita Mattila prize in 2002. In 2002 Uusitalo made his recital debut in London with pianist Roger Vignoles. In the autumn of 2003 he sang in the Proms festival as a soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in the Maggio Musicale festival in Florence, and as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He regularly works with leading conductors including, among others, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sakari Oramo, Leif Segerstam, Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas and Riccardo Chailly. In the Tampere Opera Juha Uusitalo has earlier guested in the role of Pietro in Simon Boccanegra in 2000 and in the role of Escamillo in Carmen in 2003. His other important opera roles have been, among others, in Der Fliegende Holländer, Verdi’s Falstaff, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Scarpia in Tosca, Mephistopheles in Faust, Iago in Otello, Wotan/Wanderer in Siegfried and Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola. In April 2004 Juha Uusitalo made his debut in Der Fliegende Holländer in La Scala, Milan. He sang the same role in the San Francisco Opera later same year, and will sing it in the Bavarian State Opera in 2006, and also in the concert version of the opera with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine in 2005. Future roles in San Francisco and with the Bavarian State Opera include Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Amfortas in Wagner’s Parsifal. His debut performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York will take place in 2007.