Iida Antola

Welcome to my website. My name is Iida Antola, I’m a versatile musician/artist, working mostly as an opera singer. I grew up in Finland, but I consider myself a cosmopolitan – I was born in Taipei where I spent my early childhood, I have studied and lived in Berlin and in France. I’m based in Amsterdam but I work in Ulm where I have just been engaged as a member of the ensemble. I speak fluent Finnish, English, German and French.

I work primarily as soloist, but I am also a trained pianist, choir conductor and a published composer. This season marks my first year as a member of the ensemble at Theater Ulm, Herbert von Karajan’s first theatre, singing three leading roles: Rachel in La Juive (Halévy), Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte (Mozart) and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky). I will also be making my debut in the Zaterdagmatinee series at Concertgebouw, singing in the concert performance of Louise Bertin’s long lost opera Fausto, and in summer 2027 I will be making my debut at Savonlinna Opera Festival.

My recent important roles include the main role of Marie Antoinette in The Ghosts of Versailles by John Corigliano, which I sang at Staatstheater Regensburg in 2025/2026; the Bride in the Finnish premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s latest opera Innocence, a role which I also covered at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2021; Leonora (Verdi/Il Trovatore), title roles of Suor Angelica (Puccini) and Adina (Rossini), Micaëla (Bizet/Carmen) and Donna Elvira (Mozart/Don Giovanni). I have performed at the Dutch National Opera, Opéra de Limoges, Theater Erfurt, Royal Opera Festival in Krakow, Rossini in Wildbad Festival and at the Finnish National Opera and Tampere Opera.

I’ve had success in various voice competitions. In summer 2022 I was awarded the Bel Canto Prize, Audience Prize and the Inge Borkh scholarship at the Bel Canto Festival “Rossini in Wildbad”. In 2021 I was a finalist in the prestigious ARD competition in Munich, Germany. In 2023 was awarded 1st prize at the Lappeenranta National Voice competition. Winning 1st prize in the Kangasniemi Competition in Finland back in 2017 resulted in my first working opportunities in Finland.

Besides opera I’m also a passionate Lieder singer. My debut CD “The Truth about Love” with pianist Kirill Kozlovski was published by Alba Records in 2023. I am also featured on the CD “Le pays de nos desirs”, published by B records. In season (2023-2024) I was one of the laureates of Lied Academy d’Orsay-Royaumont with pianist Anni Laukkanen and currently we are working on our first CD project. I have given recitals in Musée d’Orsay, Royaumont Abbey, MozartFest Würzburg, Crescendo Festival Berlin, Ploiesti Philharmonic and Bucharest Atheneum and in Germany, France, the Netherlands and my native Finland. In 2017 I won shared 2nd prize (1st prize wasn’t awarded) at the International Paula Salomon Lindberg Competition in Berlin with pianist Daria Tudor and in 2018 I was a finalist in both the International Hugo Wolf Lied Competition in Stuttgart and the International Schubert Lied Duo Competition in Dortmund with pianist Anni Laukkanen.

I also have a vast oratorio and concert repertoire: I have sung with orchestras such as Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Krakow Philharmonic, Tampere Philharmonic, Turku Philharmonic, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Vaasa Orchestra, Jyväskylä Orchestra, Hyvinkää Orchestra and Lappeenranta Orchestra and worked with conductors such as Susanna Mälkki, Klaus Mäkelä, Adam Hickox, Bassem Akiki and Alan Buribayev. My oratorio repertoire includes The Messiah (Handel), Requiem (Mozart), C minor mass (Mozart), Requiem (Fauré), The Seasons (Haydn), Nelson-Messe (Haydn), Salve Regina (Haydn) and Paukenmesse (Haydn).

I’m an experienced performer of contemporary music. I have perfect pitch and my repertoire includes pieces like Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi, which I performed with the Turku Philharmonic, Schönberg’s 6 songs op. 8 with Tapiola Sinfonietta and Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with various ensembles. My quick sight-reading skills have also been useful in some tricky jump-ins: I performed the main role of Alma Beers (Wuorinen/Brokeback Mountain) at Theater Erfurt on 24 hours’ notice, and the main role of Anna in The Horseman by Aulis Sallinen on 12 hours’ notice at the Finnish National Opera. I frequently collaborate with composers such as Tapio Tuomela and Heta Aho, and I can be heard as soloist on several recordings, including Veli-Matti Puumala’s opera Anna-Liisa (Ondine 2015), the Bermaniana male choir recording (Alba 2016), as well as the Helsinki Chamber Choir’s Bergman recording (BIS 2017). Publisher Sulasol has published my compositions.

Before my voice studies in Universität der Künste Berlin, I graduated as choir conductor and pianist from the Sibelius Academy. I studied choir conducting in Finland under Timo Nuoranne and Prof. Matti Hyökki and in France under Nicole Corti (CNSMD Lyon). Between 2013-2015 I worked as a chorus master for many opera productions at the Sibelius Academy and I was also the artistic director of HOL, a high-level student choir in Helsinki. In 2015 HOL was awarded two golden stars at International Tampere Vocal Music Festival choir review, where I was also awarded the prize for the best young conductor. My dream is to combine conducting and singing.

My studies and artistic projects have been supported by by grants from the Olga & Vilho Linnamo foundation, the Selim Eskelin foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Wihuri Foundation.

For shorter biographies for concerts, please ask.

Download CV in English (2026-09)