The King Goes Forth to France - Opera in Three Acts

Lilli Paasikivi notable performances have included: Schoenberg's Gurrelieder with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste; Wagner's Wesendonk-Lieder with Janos Furst; Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn and also Gurrelieder with Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen; the world premiere of Shchedrin's The Enchanted Wanderer with New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel; Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky and On Guard for Peace with the Philharmonia under Vladimir Ashkenazy; Zemlinsky's Maeterlinck Lieder with Münchner Philharmoniker under Susanna Mälkki; Mahler's Kindertotenlieder with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Mariss Jansons; and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontious with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Ashkenzay. Last season she made her concert débuts with Cincinnati Symphony and London Symphony Orchestra both under the baton of Paavo Järvi, New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas and Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. As principal soloist at Finnish National Opera, roles have included Carmen, Angelina (La cenerentola), Cordelia in Sallinen's King Lear, Dorabella (Cosiì fan tutte), Marguerite (La damnation de Faust), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Marchesa Melibea in Dario Fo's production of Il viaggio a Reims; Varvara (Katya Kabanova), Aleksandra Fjodorovna in Rautavaara's Rasputin and Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier). Elsewhere she made her début at the Châtelet in the role of The Pilgrim in Saariaho's opera L'amour de loin, sang the role of Jitsuko Honda in the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa's Hanjo at Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, made her house and role débuts at Opéra de Lyon as The Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos) and returned to Aix to sing Fricka in Das Rheingold.

Mari Palo studied with Sirkka Haavisto at the Central Ostrobothnian Conservatoire and has been a pupil of Marjut Hannula at the Sibelius Academy from 1996-2003. She has also studied with Elisabeth Norberg-Schultz, and Lied with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Hartmut Höll, Mitshuko Shirai and Ilmo Ranta. She won third prize and the special prize of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) in the Lappeenranta Singing Competition in 1999 and second prize in the Merikanto Competition in 2001. Since then she has appeared with many orchestras and given Lied recitals of her own in Finland, Denmark, France and Hungary. Her operatic roles include Michaela in Carmen, Regina von Emmeritz in Kuusisto's The Royal Ring, the Girl in Juha T. Koskinen's The Old Woman, and the Squirrel in Kirmo Lintinen's Nuts about Nosh.