




Camilla Tilling
“Tilling sounds at the height of her powers, her voice still limpid, fresh and youthful, her interpretative skills those of a mature artist.”
(The Sunday Times)
Undoubtedly one of Sweden’s most accomplished vocal talents, Camilla Tilling’s beguiling soprano and unfailing musicality have earned her enduring admiration from conductors, audiences, and critics alike throughout a glowing international career at the highest level.
As one of the world’s most sought-after concert performers, some of Tilling’s recent performances include Mahler Symphony No.4 under Gustavo Dudamel with both Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Schoenberg Gurrelieder under Esa-Pekka Salonen with London Philharmonia Orchestra, Beethoven Symphony No.9 with Gianandrea Noseda and Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra and Dutilleux Correspondances with Omer Meir Welber and Orchestre national de France. Tilling has toured extensively in Peter Sellar’s stagings of Bach’s St Matthew and St John Passions with Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle and her artistic journey was profoundly shaped by a close musical bond with the late Sir Bernard Haitink. Testament to their enduring collaboration and mutual admiration, she was chosen as Strauss soloist for his historic final concerts with Radio Filharmonish Orkest at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in 2019.
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In the 2025/2026 season, Tilling joins Munich Philharmonic for Michael Haydn’s Requiem under Riccardo Minasi, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Ravel Sheherazade under Nicholas Collon, and Teatro Carlo Felice, Genova in Mendelssohn’s Elias under Diego Fasolis. In North America, she joins Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Tabita Berglund for Mahler’s Symphony No.4 and Rückert Lieder, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for Bach’s Mass in B minor under Nathalie Stutzmann, and she reunites with David Danzmayr for a programme combining Golijov’s Three Songs for soprano and orchestra and Mahler Symphony No. 4 with ProMusica Chamber Orchestra.
Early standout roles such as Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Ilia (Idomeneo), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) marked pivotal debuts for Tilling at Royal Ballet & Opera, Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opéra national de Paris, Teatro alla Scala and The Metropolitan Opera. Her portrayal of Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande) brought her to stages such as Teatro Real Madrid, Semperoper Dresden, Finnish National Opera and to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and she debuted as Donna Clara (Der Zwerg) at Bayerische Staatsoper and as The Governess (Turn of the Screw) at Glyndebourne Festival. Most recently at Royal Swedish Opera, she has delivered powerful performances as Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites), Suor Angelica and Contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro).
With an already impressively varied repertoire, Tilling has in recent seasons embraced new works such as Irgen-Jensens’ song cycle Japanischer Frühling with Christian Blex and Karajan-Akademie of Berlin Philharmonic, Janáček’s GlagoliticMass under the baton of Rafael Payare with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Mendelssohn’s Paulus with Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España under Masaaki Suzuki, Golijov’s Three Songs for soprano and orchestra with David Danzmayr and the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Debussy’s La Damoiselle élue with Donald Runnicles and Sydney Symphony Orchestra and she sang the world-premiere of Daniel Nelson’s Chaplin Songs with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Manze.
Camilla Tilling is an accomplished recitalist and has recorded many Lieder collections by composers including Strauss, Schumann, Schubert and Grieg. She has toured widely with her acclaimed “Swedish Nightingale” programme Jenny Lind: Love and Lieder, most recently in North America with renowned pianist Emanuel Ax, and is a regular guest at Bergen International Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival and London’s hallowed Wigmore Hall.
Tilling’s impressive discography includes orchestral works by Haydn with Bernard Haitink, Handel and Purcell with Emmanuelle Haïm, Grieg with Paavo Järvi, Brahms with Marek Janowski, Cherubini with Riccardo Muti and a critically acclaimed solo collection of Mozart and Gluck arias, Loves me … loves me not, with Philipp von Steinaecker and Musica Saeculorum.
Camilla Tilling is committed to supporting the next generation of singers and regularly gives Masterclasses and sits on Jury panels
Contacts
Shirley Thomson Senior Director, VOICE at HarrisonParrott | Head of CSR
Shirley Thomson Senior Director, VOICE at HarrisonParrott | Head of CSR
General Management
Gallery
“Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling proved to be a superb advocate for these gorgeous songs [Mahler’s
Rückert Lieder]. Her warm but clear tone, vocal agility and sheer musicality was a constant delight.”
“…one was struck by Camilla Tilling’s vocal purity, fittingly echoed by the children’s choir.”
“Camilla Tilling is on ravishing form in this beautifully paced album of Romantic and Expressionist songs” [Jugendstil; BIS records]
“Camilla Tilling provided the evening’s most genuinely consoling moment, in her melting rendition of the fifth movement [in Brahms’s German Requiem]”
“It’s difficult to resist the purity of her sound, the loveliness of her pearly, bright tone…Tilling bringing beguiling tone and unfailing musicality…”
“for his farewell, Haitink conducted the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of the Netherlands in five orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, with Camilla Tilling as a very fine soloist”
“Tilling… was rapturous in her ecstatic evocation of ‘death, the reviver of beauty’”
“In this outstandingly accomplished selection of 18th-century operatic arias, Camilla Tilling demonstrates just how rewarding such albums can be when executed with the most genuine kind of musico-dramatic artistry. The eminent Swedish soprano…[has] the sort of fine-grained delivery – in equal part vocal and verbal, whether in French or Italian – that results in a parade of ‘real people’ stepping out in three dimensions before the listener’s delighted ears. Tilling’s fresh-sounding soprano is, on this showing, a protean Classical instrument…everywhere employed with such unassailable technical mastery, such control of breath support and easy flow of phrase, that not even the extravagant high-and-low flourishes of Fiordiligi’s ‘Come scoglio’ emerge flustered or short-changed…this CD [is] a truly remarkable achievement.” *****
“her voice has expanded in its range of colours without losing the precision of the line or technique. [Tilling] gives us musical purity without ever sacrificing the text…she gives us superb recitative and dynamic mastery…A rare find.”
“Her voice remains fresh and peachy, is well-knit through its registers, and she sings with an unaffected directness, allowing the music to speak for itself” *****
“Ilia is one of Tilling’s favourite roles and she sings two of the arias, ‘Padre, germani, addio’ and ‘Zeffiretti lusinghieri’, with a silvery grace, enlivened by the occasional hint of a fast vibrato. Her Susanna and Countess are nicely differentiated, the latter’s ‘Dove sono’ touchingly inward at the reprise…’Come scoglio’ is where this disc takes off with a newly urgent sense of drama, and ‘Per pietà’ makes a virtue of her lightness of voice…Of the Gluck, the most engaging is the intensely felt ‘Che fiero momento’ of Eurydice, a role Tilling has portrayed notably on stage. It is good to have Armide’s Act 2 aria, ‘Ah! Si la liberté’, and she is deeply affecting in it…Everything here is well judged and sympathetically sung’
“‘Come scoglio’ (preceded by an excitingly incisive delivery of the ‘Temerari!’ recitative) rivets the listener; there’s security at both ends of the range, the requisite flexibility, and vivid projection of both the character’s outrage and her unquenchable fidelity.”
“It says something — not especially complimentary — about the classical record industry that this great Mozart soprano features on no complete audio recordings of Idomeneo, Le nozze di Figaro or Così fan tutte. Her accounts of Ilia’s arias from Acts I and III, Susanna’s Deh vieni, the Countess’s Dove sono and both of Fiordiligi’s arias are superior by some distance to any of those by the sopranos cast in recent complete sets. Tilling sounds at the height of her powers, her voice still limpid, fresh and youthful, her interpretative skills those of a mature artist. She sings long “instrumental” lines unbroken by breaths, yet her textual inflections — the word “Invan” (In vain), in the preceding recit to Fiordiligi’s Come scoglio, bristles with outraged indignation; the climax of the Countess’s E Susanna non vien thrills the ear with her affronted pride – illuminate character. Thirty years ago, her voice might have been considered small for Fiordiligi and Gluck’s Armide and Iphigénie, but, today, with a period-instrument orchestra, it is perfectly attuned to their dramatic accents. The two excerpts from Armide, rare on recital discs, and O malheureuse Iphigénie are special gems from a captivating disc.”
“Camilla Tilling’s clear soprano conveyed both the innocent naiveté of Mélisande and a kind of fata purity that chimed with Debussy’s unchanging musical motif employed at her every entrance.”
“Camilla Tilling is a silvery voiced Mélisande.”
“The cast here was superb…Camilla Tilling captured the seemingly lightheaded Mélisande with pretty, unstressed tone and elegantly nuanced phrasing.”
“Camilla Tilling’s singing had some moments of breathtaking purity of tone, and she presented a passive, ethereal Mélisande.”
“sung with smiling, vernal tone and an evident pleasure in the words.”
“Among the most touching moments was clear-voiced soprano Camilla Tilling’s duet on ‘Aus liebe will mein Heiland sterben’ with [the flautist], their voices exquisitely blended and balanced.”
“Camilla Tilling presented a Susanna to be reckoned with, who was obviously going to keep Figaro in his place. Her ‘Deh vieni’ was beautifully and meaningfully sung.”
“The Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling is a sparky and vocally secure Susanna, with a beautifully floated Deh vieni non tadar.”