Raimo LaukkaThe baritone Raimo Laukka (born 1954) studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki from 1983 until 1988. He has won numerous national singing competitions and was a finalist at the International Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna in 1988. The following year he was engaged by Finnish National Opera as a soloist. Laukka has appeared at many of Europe’s opera houses, including Bonn, Strasbourg and Berlin, as well as at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. His repertoire include rôles such as Figaro in The Barber of Seville, the Count in The Marriage of Figaro, the title rôle in Eugene Onegin, Don Carlos in La forza del destino and Wolfram in Tannhäuser. In addition to opera, Raimo Laukka also appears in recital and as a soloist, and has performed in Europe and the United States under such conductors as Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Leif Segerstam and Neeme Järvi.