Tuomas Katajala
The Finnish tenor Tuomas Katajala is one of the most versatile and sought-after Scandinavian tenors, with notable successes in both the opera and concert fields. His vocal brilliance and effortless high register make him a popular singer for a diverse opera and concert repertoire, with a focus on German and Slavic works.
Projects in the 2026/27 season include his debut in the title role in Clemenza di Tito in Limoges, as well as Edrisi in Szymanowski’s Krol Roger with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He will also take on Froh/Das Rheingold in a concert performance with the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra. The season is filled with many prestigious concert projects, including Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Tarmo Peltokoski, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Turku as well as in Turin (under Fabio Luisi) and Palermo (under Hartmut Haenchen), Verdi’s Requiem in Malmö, Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Lahti, and an Italian concert evening by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra featuring arias and duets by Puccini.
In 2019, Katajala made his role debut as Max on a tour of Der Freischütz, with concert performances in Vienna, Brussels, Caen, Luxembourg, Aix-en-Provence and at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele. This engagement marked the beginning of his development toward more dramatic roles and was followed by debuts as Loge/Rheingold in Helsinki, Idomeneo in Tel Aviv, Hoffegut/Die Vögel in Strasbourg, and most recently Parsifal in concert performances in Finland and Milan, Lohengrin in Savonlinna, and Erik/Der fliegende Holländer in Beijing, as well as in semi-staged concerts in Luxembourg and Brussels under Tarmo Peltokoski.
Opera highlights of recent seasons have also included Tamino/Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Opéra de Lille, Finnish National Opera, in Tampere and Savonlinna; Belmonte/Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Savonlinna; Steersman/Der fliegende Holländer in Helsinki and in concert with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome; Max/Der Freischütz at Theater an der Wien; and Chevalier de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites in Helsinki. In the 2024/25 season, he made his debut as Andrei Khovansky/Chowanschtschina in Helsinki and Stockholm (Esa-Pekka Salonen), as well as Pollux in Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae in Genoa, and in 2025/26 he followed with his role debut as Dimitri/Boris Godunow at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, as well as his role and house debut as Bacchus/Ariadne auf Naxos at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.
Katajala has an extensive concert and oratorio repertoire, which he has performed at renowned venues and festivals in the USA (including Avery Fisher Hall in New York), France (including Salle Pleyel in Paris), Germany (Laeiszhalle Hamburg), the Netherlands (Concertgebouw Amsterdam), Portugal (Gulbenkian), Scandinavia, Spain, the United Kingdom (Glyndebourne Festival) and Japan.
Recent concert highlights have included Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Oslo Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Britten’s “Serenade for tenor and horn” with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at La Scala, as well as the title roles in concert performances of Parsifal and Oedipus Rex, each with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Das Rheingold/Loge in concert in Singapore, Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Hélène with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as concert performances as Idomeneo (title role) with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra in Helsinki and at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
He has worked with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Kent Nagano, Klaus Mäkelä, Pablo Heras-Casado, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mikko Franck, Susanna Mälkki, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Hannu Lintu, Tugan Sokhiev, Andrey Boreyko, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Patrick Lange and Tarmo Peltokoski, and directors including Romeo Castellucci, David Marton, Ted Huffman and Olivier Py.
Tuomas Katajala studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki as well as in Rome and Amsterdam. He has a close and long-standing collaboration with the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and the Savonlinna Opera Festival, where he made his stage debut as Tamino/Die Zauberflöte.