An August evening beckons you to enjoy a nocturnal adventure in the moonlight, as Tapiola Hall in Espoo echoes with Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) and Alexander Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony. The Orchestra of the Finnish National Opera will be conducted by Chief Conductor Hannu Lintu.
Soprano Astrid Kessler and baritone Tommi Hakala will sing as the soloists of the Lyric Symphony.
The concert is part of the Urkuyö & Aaria festival. The concert venue is Espoo Cultural Centre, Tapiola Hall.
creative team
Tommi Hakala
Baritone Tommi Hakala found international fame after winning the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in the summer of 2003. He is also the winner of the 2001 Merikanto singing competition in Finland. In addition to the Finnish National Opera, Hakala has performed at the Leipzig and Nuremberg Operas as well as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Semperoper Dresden, Teatro Regio in Turin, the Royal Danish Opera, the operas of Tampere and Turku, and the Savonlinna Opera Festival.
Beyond the opera stages, Hakala is a sought after soloist in lied and orchestral concerts. Besides Finland’s leading orchestras, he has been a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Soprano Astrid Kessler is in high demand in international stages. Her versatile voice befits music from Verdi and Wagner to Puccini and Strauss. She has impressed both audiences and critics with her roles as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Abigaille in Nabucco, and Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly.
Kessler has worked with internationally renowned conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Manfred Honeck, Marc Piollet, Cornelius Meister, Dan Ettinger, Alexander Soddy, Axel Kober, Friedrich Haider, and Ulf Schirmer.
Hannu Lintu has held the position of Chief Conductor at the Finnish National Opera since August 2021. In 2023, he also took up the baton as Chief Conductor of Orquestra Gulbenkian, and in the autumn of 2025, he will begin working as the artistic partner of Lahti Symphony Orchestra. ‘
Lintu’s numerous recordings for Ondine, BIS, Naxos, Avie and Hyperion have received several accolades, including two ICMA awards and two GRAMMY nominations.
Lintu studied cello and piano at the Sibelius Academy, where he also later studied conducting with Jorma Panula. He has complemented his studies in masterclasses with Myung-Whun Chung at the L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Lintu took first prize at the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994.
