Stage Director
Vilppu Kiljunen is a freelance opera stage director whose works can be seen across Finland and abroad. He has contributed to the Savonlinna Opera Festival through its artistic committee and is currently a member of its council.
Kiljunen started by studying musicology and drama as well as theoretical philosophy at Helsinki University. He also studied violin at the Helsinki Conservatory of Music, dance among others at the Finnish National Opera Ballet School, and pantomime at the International School of Marcel Marceau in Paris. In 1990, he graduated with a Master of Arts in Stage Directing from the Theater Academy of Finland.
Vilppu Kiljunen was the artistic director of the Theater Pieni Suomi and has taught at many institutions such as the Arts Academy of Turku, the Aalto University School of Design, the Theater Academy Helsinki, and the Sibelius Academy. He debuted as an opera director with Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito in 1993. In addition to his work on the main stages in Finland, he has staged operas abroad in Sweden, Middle Europe as well as in Russia at the Marinsky Theater in St.Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
His most recent stagings are the Die Zauberflöte by Mozart for the Estonian National Opera and the world premiere of the opera Vanapaga at the Vanemuine Theater in Tartu, Estonia. In summer 2025 he worked La Forza del Destino by Verdi based on the existing concept at the Savonlinna Opera Festival and the Orfeo by Georg Friedrich Telemann, commissioned by Sibelius-Academy and performed in the Helsinki Music Hall and Tampere Concert Hall.