SVETLANA RUSSKAYA (following her marriage - HALTTUNEN) is a Russian-born singer who grew up in Georgia. She began singing early in life, giving her first radio performance at the age of six. At 16, she joined a folk-singing group in Tbilisi. On leaving school, Svetlana went to Moscow to study at the University, and there met her husband-to-be, a young Finnish diplomat; and so she moved to Finland. In Helsinki she took up singing seriously and started performing Russian songs and romances. Next, Svetlana enrolled as a student to study classical voice at the Sibelius Academy of Music under Iolanta di Maria Petris, and graduated with high honors. This was followed by further training in voice at the Moscow Conservatoire under Galina Pisarenko, from which Svetlana went on to perfect her technique under the supervision of the famous Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, working at the same time with Rita Streich and Erik Werba. For her debut in opera, Svetlana sang Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin", a role she went on to perform in Gdansk, Schwerin, Monte Carlo, Helsinki and at the Nemirovich-Danchenko musical theatre in Moscow. She sang the part of Donna Elvira in "Don Giovanni" in Italian city of Lucca and in Athens; her other roles were Desdemona in Verdi's opera "Othello", Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's "Madame Butterfly", and Micaela in Bizet 's "Carmen".

Gradually, however, Svetlana was becoming more and more interested in concert performance, to which she gives herself whole-heartedly. She sees the concert stage as a theatre for a singer-actor; large and small concert halls are all alike to her, and singing is the essence of her soul - and at every occasion, a celebration for her admirers. It is regrettable how the constant demands of travel to be with her husband, and her family, whom she did not want to leave on account of his career, have impeded the rise of such a bright star with a unique timbre, a velvet voice of exceptional expressiveness and nobility. She would have been a true primadonna of romantic song.

This is what the leading critics of Finland's national press say about her: "Russian romances , when performed by Svetlana Halttunen, are a personal triumph for her; her marvelous interpretation and her innate musical ability, in combination with the expressiveness of that distinct Slavic vocal timbre, are a delight to the ear." (Rabbe Forsman, of the Huvudstadsbladet). "Svetlana Halttunen in her Russian repertoire has no equal in Finland" - the famous Finnish critic Hannu-Ilari Lampila, in the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. The German musicologist from Berlin, Hilmar Franz, writes: "Hearing that voice, full charm and brightness, tenderness and emotion, you feel an overwhelming enchantment".

Svetlana has recorded for Finnish radio and television a series of programs containing old Russian romances, the romantic songs of Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov, and performances of arias and romances for Russian, Greek and French television.

Svetlana has achieved success with her solo recitals in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Rome, Athens, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Cairo.