Miina-Liisa Värelä
soprano
© Paul Paasimaa
The Finnish soprano Miina-Liisa Värela, who's just been voted »Best Female Singer« by Oper!, is back at Oper Frankfurt, where she made her debut singing the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, followed by Ortrud in Lohengrin, to sing Isolde in this revival of Tristan und Isolde. She made her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona with the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and sang Brünnhilde on a tour of Germany in The Ring in one Evening. Future plans include Kundry in Parsifal at the 2026 Bayreuth Festival, where she made her debut singing Ortrud in Lohengrin. and her first Brünnhildes in Die Walküre with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Daniel Harding, which she then sings in a new production at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich under Vladimir Jurowski, and concerts with the Orchestre de Paris under Daniel Harding, singing Sieglinde, and in Sibelius' Kullervo with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Robin Ticciati. She sang Isolde in Glyndebourne and at the 2021 BBC Proms, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) at Finnish National Opera, Elektra at the Landestheater in Linz and Otrud at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg. She has appeared in concert with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Solistes Europées Luxembourg and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne under Hannu Lintu. She won many prizes at singing competitions, reached the finals and won the Special Prize at the Lappeenranta Competition and won the 2010 International Belvedere Competition in Vienna, who awarded her the Verena Keller Scholarship.