About Us: Soprano Milla

How does it feel to be in front of a camera?

[When in front of a camera] I mentally go through all the unsuccesful pictures of me. So not good.

What interests you most in this process?

It's interesting to get to do something that's very now. Singers interested in baroque often do contemporary music as well. What those genres have in common is the lack of a definitive tradition. We can create the libretto and music and make whatever we want out of them.

Building a role, onstage work and singing are a challenging combination. You learn to do opera just by doing. I'm looking forward to improving in combining these things. I'm sure this will be one of the most instructive and memorable projects in my masters studies. Also it will be nice to do more of Itzam's music.

I've been so excited about my voice slowly starting to work like an instrument, and that my artistic persona now has a clearer profile. I don't think anymore that I, as a singer, should only sing as beautifully as possible or in the same way as some other singer has sung.

I've been also very glad about having got Anna-Maija on board. I've admired her unique singer persona for a long time already. What kind of stage chemistry will we have? Usually the musicians I work with inspire and teach me - it's not just about your own performance, it's the joint effort of the whole group. That's why our project is so special.

What would be your worst-case scenario?

A flu.

What do you think about your character, Ihminen ("human"), reading Juho's libretto? How does it feel to be soon stepping in Ihminen's shoes?

I've thought about the lack of gender. Earlier onstage I've done female roles with a very clear character, roles that you can describe with simple adjectives such as "bad" or "princess". Now I'd like to try to build a flesh-and-blood, realistic character. It won't be a fairytale one, this human.

For now I'm trying to stay open for the role, because there's plenty of room for different interpretations in the libretto itself. Ihminen in Juho's libretto is a tabula rasa. I'm going to wait and see, in which direction the music will take the character.

You've performed Itzam's songs before. Tell something about the experience, what was it like?

I can't get enough of Itzam's music! He's got such

innovative ideas, and the compositions themselves are so beautiful and multilayered. Humour and depth walk hand in hand, and the songs have sophisticated tone colours, graceful melodic lines and usually a perfectly genious rhythmic structure.

One of the most unforgettable musical experiences of my life was to perform Itzam's song cycle Ludi for soprano, renaissance flute and theorbo. In Ludi I got to sing in Spanish, English, Toki Pona and Nahuat, and to experiment with a variety of ways to use my voice. These days a singer sometimes has to embrace a very different vocal aesthetic than what we've used to in traditional classical singing. In Ludi I was especially impressed by how delicately Itzam was able to bring to the vocal line gestures typical for baroque.

What makes Itzam's music special is that it works for all kinds of audiences. Even though it's skilfully crafted and "art", it's still not difficult to approach or dusty. It's simply current music for today's people.

In the beginning it was difficult to say out loud whether some part of Itzam's first drafts was too hard to do. The music in itself felt from the start so perfect, that I didn't want to intrude and complain that something is too much of a challenge for the voice.

I want the words to be understood, however. It's more challenging to distinguish vowels from music that's written very high. [The singer sometimes can help the composer with this kind of things.] And the more you work with living composers, the more important good communication becomes. Also it's important that contemporary music is easily approachable for the singer, too. It's a waste to compose songs that only a singer with a perfect pitch or a vocal acrobat can perform. That's why co-operating with the composers is important.

..and what does Itzam think about it all? You'll hear soon..