Mezzosoprano LILLI PAASIKIVI was engaged as a soloist at the Finnish National Opera from 1998 to 2013 and took up the post of Artistic Director of the Finnish National Opera in 2013. In the course of her career, she has appeared at the Hamburg State Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, the Royal Opera in Stockholm and the Savonlinna Opera Festival; her opera roles include Amneris in Aida, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Fricka in Die Walküre, the title role in Carmen and Kundry in Parsifal.

Lilli Paasikivi has appeared with numerous distinguished orchestras, such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras. Her discography includes Sibelius’s Kullervo Symphony with Sinfonia Lahti and Osmo Vänskä (BIS), the complete solo songs of Alma Mahler with the Tampere Philharmonic and Jorma Panula (Ondine) and Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy.