Biography

The Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling has emerged as one of the world's leading Mozart singers, equally at home on the operatic and concert stages, in the recital hall, and in the recording studio, where she has been associated with the BIS label in her home country. Tilling was born in the small town of Linköping, in central Sweden, in 1971. "As a child I would sing for hours," she told Britain's Opera magazine. "I suppose I was just one of those children who loved singing, and when we went out in the car, I'd sing for the whole ride. I grew up on a farm; there were no neighbors close by, so we could make a lot of noise and I could sing without disturbing anyone." Sweden's strong school musical education and choral programs honed her skills, and she enrolled at the Academy of Music and Drama in Goteborg. While a student there, in 1997, Tilling made her debut as Olympia in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann. She completed her studies at the Royal College of Music in London, graduating in 1998. Tilling quickly found major roles at opera houses in Sweden, Britain, and the U.S. Early on, she made her New York City Opera debut as Corinna in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims, and in 2002 she appeared as Sophie in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. The lighter roles of Strauss have been a Tilling specialty, along with the operas of Mozart; one of her most common Mozart roles has been Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. In 2005 she made her debut at La Scala, in Mozart's Idomeneo. Tilling has worked with historical-performance-oriented conductors as well as those in the operatic mainstream, appearing in a recorded performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas conducted by Emmanuelle Haim. By the mid-2010s, Tilling was paired in concert with the world's leading conductors: Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic (with whom she performed Bach's St. Matthew Passion), Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. In 2009 Tilling made her solo recording debut with BIS, in Rote Rosen, a recital of Strauss songs with pianist Paul Rivinius. She has also recorded Schubert lieder and I skogen (2015), a selection of Scandinavian songs, for the label. In 2017 she issued Loves Me... Loves Me Not..., a recording of arias by Mozart and Gluck.