Lea Piltti

The Finnish Cultural Foundation occasionally awards the Lea Piltti Prize, based on Piltti's 1979 endowment, to distinguished opera singers; recipients include Kim Borg, Anita Välkki, Jorma Hynninen and Matti Salminen.

In 1974, the honorary title of Professori was conferred on Piltti.

In 1956, Piltti received the Pro Finlandia [fi] medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland.

Upon her return to Finland in 1943, Piltti initially received a cool reception due to her association with Nazi Germany, and it took many years for her talents to be appreciated again in her native country.

She was married twice. During her time in Germany she was married to a German man, as well as taking German citizenship. The marriage ended in 1943, and Piltti returned to Finland, where, in 1946, she married Olavi Killinen.

In 1939, Richard Strauss personally invited Piltti to sing the challenging Zerbinetta aria from Ariadne auf Naxos at his 75th anniversary concert.

Her signature piece was the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's Magic Flute'. In 1936, during a guest appearance at the Berlin State Opera to sing this role, she sang the aria in a much faster tempo than the conductor Leo Blech would have wanted, and Blech at first stopped conducting in protest at the singer's insolence, but by the time the piece was finished, he along with the audience was shouting out for an encore.

Piltti recorded extensively, mostly collections of arias, but also at least one complete opera recording, namely Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1936). She also had a singing role in the German 1942 film Wiener Blut (Vienna Blood), directed by Willi Forst.

For much of her active singing career, however, Piltti worked in Germany, where she was nicknamed Die Piltti. She was attached to opera houses in Königsberg, Danzig, and Darmstadt, followed by several years as the first coloratura soprano at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar (1934–1938) and finally at Vienna State Opera (1938–1943), before returning to Finland. She also made many guest appearances in opera houses and concerts in Berlin, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Budapest, and Salzburg, among others, as well as in the USA.

Piltti made her operatic debut at the Finnish Opera (now the Finnish National Opera and Ballet) in Helsinki, in the title role of Lakmé, in September 1927. She returned there a few more times in the 1940s and 1950s.

She later continued her training on numerous study trips mainly to Paris, where she was tutored by Gabrielle Ritter-Ciampi, and to Berlin, working with Olga Eisner and Hertha Dehmlow throughout the late 1920s.

Lea Piltti (1 February 1904 – 5 February 1982) was a Finnish opera singer and voice pedagog, one of the leading coloratura sopranos of the 1930s and 40s, and one of Finland's most successful singers on the international stage.