Riina Airenne

b. September 12, 1959, Tartu
Member of the Association of Estonian Theatre since 1989
Member of the Association of Estonian Professional Musicians since 1998
Member of the Association of Professional Actors of Estonia since 2010

Riina Airenne (Kadaja) graduated from the Heino Eller Tartu Music School in the choral conducting class of Vaike Uibopuu in 1979. She continued at the Tallinn State Conservatoire, studying choral conducting (1979–1984) with Prof Ants Üleoja and singing with Prof Ivo Kuusk and Tiiu Levald (1984–1989). She has improved her skills with Shen Xiang, Ly Yinwei, Eva Plahova, Marga Schiml, Ludmilla Braun, Thomas Hensley, Nicolas Christou, Tamara Novitchenko, Margarita Gruzdjeva and Kaludi Kaludov.

In 1989 Riina Airenne was the winner of first prize in the National Competition for Vocalists and earned a special award for the best performance of opera arias. From 1989–2012 she was the soloist of the Estonian National Opera (since 2012 the guest soloist) and since 2014 worked there as the stage manager in the opera department. Since 1992 she is the lecturer of the Voice Department of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Among her students have been Kristina Vähi, Helen Poolma and Elizabeth Paavel.

Soprano/mezzo-soprano Riina Airenne repertoire consists of nearly 50 leading opera and operetta roles, including Gianetta (Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore), Helena (Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele), Countess and Cherubino (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro), II Lady (Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte), Annina and Flora (Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata), Eboli (Verdi’s Don Carlo), Fenena (Verdi’s Nabucco), Giovanna (Verdi’s Ernani), Amneris (Verdi’s Aida), Emilia (Verdi’s Othello), Ulrica (Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera), Anna (Aulis Sallinen’s The Horseman), Javotte (Jules Massenet’s Manon), Ciesca (Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi), Suzuki and Kate Pinkerton (Puccini’s Madame Butterfly), Carmen (Georges Bizet’s Carmen), Countess (Alexander Dargomyzhsky’s Mermaid), Lucretia (Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia), Miss Baggott (Britten’s The Little Sweep), Herodias (Richard Strauss’s Salome), Marina (Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov), Abuela (Manuel de Falla’s La vida breve), Miss Todd (Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief), Madam Flora (Menotti’s The Medium), Marianna (Gioachino Rossini’s Signor Bruschino), Tisbe (Rossini’s La Cenerentola), Countess (Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades), Lucia (Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana), The Muse and Nicklausse (Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann), Silva (Imre Kálmán’s Silva), Carla (Kálmán’s Circus Princess), A Neighbour (Igor Stravinsky’s Mavra, concert performance).

Among the roles by Estonian composers, she has sung Catharina (Eduard Tubin’s The Parson of Reigi), Barbara (Tubin’s Barbara von Tisenhusen), Countess Maria (René Eespere’s Gourmets), Mother Laine (Timo Steiner’s The Wooing), Teacher and Josephine (Tõnis Kaumann’s I – Napoleon!), Frida (Alo Põldmäe’s Depression in the Bar), Lady (Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Wallenberg) and Roberta Gómez Dawson (Mari Vihmand’s The Formula of Love).

Additionally, she has performed in several children’s musicals and Frederick Loewe’s musical My Fair Lady (Mrs. Higgins), participated in the festival Midsummer Stars by Estonian National Opera, Opera-Jazz project with Helmut Aniko Ensemble and Global Estonian Cultural Days in Tornoto, Canada (2000). She has also sung solo parts in large-scale vocal works like Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi, Requiem for Fallen Soldiers by Eduard Tubin.

Riina Airenne has collaborated with conductors like Peeter Lilje, Eri Klas, Neeme Järvi, Paul Mägi, Jüri Alperten, Arvo Volmer, Erki Pehk, Risto Joost, Mihhail Gertz, Vello Pähn, Aivo Välja, Lauri Sirp, Hannu Bister, Carlo Cillario, Carlos Spierer and others. Her piano partners have been Riina Pikani, Tarmo Eespere, Peep Lassmann, Marje Lohuaru and others. Concerts have taken her besides Estonia also to Latvia, Lithuania, Czech, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Russia, Chuvashiya, Canada and Cyprus.

Riina Airenne has received the scholarship of Estonian Richard Wagner Society (1992), the Annual Prize of the Estonian Theatre Union for the title role in Bizet’s Carmen (1998), the Cultural Prize of the Harju County Government (1999) and the Georg Ots Prize for the roles Catharina (Tubin’s The Parson of Reigi), Silva (Kàlmàn’s Silva), Fenega (Verdi’s Nabucco), Countess (Dargomyzhsky’s Mermaid), Herodias (Strauss’s Salome) and Verdi’s Requeim (2001). In 1999 she was nominated as the best singer for Suur Vanker Cultural Prize.

© EMIC 2009
(updated December 2019)

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