Press

About Bach: Tenor Arias - recording on Nilento Records 2020:

  • ”World class Bach arias" - Opulens 21.01.2021
  • 📻📻📻📻📻 out of 5 possible from all 4 panel members:
    ”    The strenght of the album is that it dares to take out all the nuances and interpret all the lyrics. Very virtuosic arias, something that Aruhn-Solén manages very well with his enormous range and good diction. Really nice!” - Musikrevyn 11.01.2021
  • "Göteborg Baroque and Leif Aruhn-Solén excel in perfect unlovely music making. [...] It is beutiful and the tenor range is impressive [...] Aruhn-Solén dares to go the whole hog... [...] ... this recording - one of the best in recent years when it comes to Bach.” - OPUS #101 25.02.2021
  • ”Leif Aruhn-Solén’s voice is brilliantly flexible and, in breathtakingly long and fast melismas, melts almost instrumentally together with oboes and other wind instruments.” - KMT no. 3, 5.03.2021


About L'Orfeo - Vasa Baroque 2019:

  • ”The title role was sung by Leif Aruhn-Solén who is a real Baroque specialist. His tenor is dazzlingly beautiful and his interpretation of the suffering Orpheus is deeply sympathetic." - Hufvudstadsbladet 15.10.2019
  • ”The Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén master sang the role of Orfeo. Bright tonality, varying nuances and textures sparkled in the hall. The quiet "oh no" as Orfeo heard of his wife's death, riveted [the heart of the audience]. Also touching was the entire dialogue between Orfeo and the messenger, played by Essi Luttinen” - Helsingin Sanomat 15.10.2019
  • ”Orfeo" is an artistic hit - and the singers really show their standard [...] The lead role is very convincingly sung by the sympathetic tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén.” - Vasabladet 12.10.2019


About Satyagraha - BAM, New York 2018:

  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén, a singer and actor of great presence, makes a captivating (and visually remarkably convincing) Mahatma Gandhi, his clean, clear tenor possessing an angelic upper range." - Limelight Magazine 3.11.2018
  • "...phenomenal angelic voices carried the message of the inner and outward journey for truth and justice to the heavens with their gentleness and subtleties in both movement and musicality. This is particularly true of Leif Aruhn-Solen whose portrayal of Gandhi is the epitome of peace.” - Broadway World 3.11.2018
  • “the role of Gandhi, skillfully sung by the tenor Leif Aruhn-Solen” - The New York Times 5.11.2018
  • "Gandhi (the eloquent tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén) delicately sings the repeated rising line of his final aria” - The Wall Street Journal 2.11.2018
  • "”consistently excellent singing [...] with Leif Aruhn-Solén as the sweet-toned Gandhi” - Financial Times 2.11.2018


About L'Orfeo - Göteborg Baroque 2018:

  • "...something important and crucial happens in the meeting between Leif Aruhn-Solén's fantastic interpretation of the Orfeus character and the bass Steffen Bruun Rørvig" - Göteborgs-Posten 19.1.2018
  • "[the ensemble of singers] is dominated, as it should, by Orfeus himself in the form of Leif Aruhn-Solén. His Orfeus is macho confident in an unusual way, but sung with a beautifully rounded sound in all registers.” - Aftonbladet 20.1.2018
  • ”In the underworld, the adaptation is transformed to the present, when Leif Aruhn-Solén’s excellent Orfeo is stopped by Steffen Bruun Rørvig’s mightily sounding Caronte” - Dagens Nyheter 24.1.2018
  • "As it should be, Orfeus is the dominant protagonist, and in Leif Aruhn-Solén's interpretation, he is an unusually self-conscious, almost macho like expressive man. Aruhn-Solén's tenor is powerful, smooth and beautifully well balanced, and it is a consistent and impressive accomplished Orfeus interpretation.” - Tidskriften OPERA no. 1 2018


About Satyagraha - Folkoperan 2016:

  • "...I enjoy just as much singer-Gandhi, tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén's, crystal-clear high notes in all simplicity." - Expressen 16.9.2016
  • "It is really only Gandhi himself who has been given a profile among the singers: Leif Aruhn-Solén with slender tenor voice, precise tone accuracy and great perseverance, from the first scene's prudent lawyer with bowler hat and jacket to the leader of the people with democratic and ethnic proper loincloth.” - OPUS 16.9.2016
  • "The Gandhi figure - beautifully sung by Leif Aruhn-Solén…" - Dagens Nyheter 16.9.2016
  • "The young Mahatma Gandhi wears a bowler hat and glasses in Leif Aruhn-Solén's unassuming interpretation. With his mild tenor timbre he gives Gandhi discreet obstinacy and a bit of a smile." - Svenska Dagbladet 15.9.2016
  • ”...the protagonist Gandhi (the light and fair sounding tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén).” - Enköpings-Posten 20.9.2016


About Armida - Pinchgut Opera 2016:

  • "As Rinaldo, Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solen impressed with his agility, timbral warmth and resounding power. [...] In the wrong hands, Rinaldo’s sudden changes of heart could seem implausible. Aruhn-Solen’s expressive intensity made them convincing." - The Australian 24.6.2016
  • "Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén has the ideal middle and top register for the arch-ditherer Rinaldo. His clean, sympathetic lyricism is most attractive, [...] his coloratura is terrific and he makes 'Caro, sarò fedele', his long duet with Armida at the end of the first act, an appropriate climax” - Limelight Magazine 24.6.2016
  • "Rinaldo was splendidly sung and acted by Leif-Aruhn Solen. [...] He has several show stopping scenes/arias [...] Ravishing; his expressive intensity made Rinaldo’s many changes of heart appear convincing." - ArtsHub 26.6.2016
  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén makes a lyrically lovelorn Rinaldo." - Financial Times 23.6.2016
  • ”Rachelle Durkin is well-known to Australian audiences for her fearsome virtuosity and fiery physicality: she draws on both in the title role. Leif Aruhn-Solen, making his Pinchgut debut, is no less impressive” - The Sydney Morning Herald 24.6.2016
  • "Rachelle Durkin as Armida, and Leif Aruhn-Solen as the vacillating Rinaldo, combined brilliantly in a coloratura duet” - Australian Stage 24.6.2016


About St. Matthew Passion - Aarhus Symphony Orchestra 2016:

  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén was an excellent evangelist with his strong and style conscious tenor voice" - Politiken 22.3.2016


About St. Matthew Passion - Holmen's Church, Copenhagen 2015:

  • "The tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén was through all three hours, a clear and ardent evangelist. With vocal beauty, exemplary diction and dramatic nerve he gave voice to the Passion, making the hair stand up on the back of the neck. It almost had a shock effect, when he in the passage "But Jesus uttered another loud cry and then yielded up His spirit" slung his "laut" out in the church as a distress call. Aruhn-Solén was a world class evangelist.” - Kristeligt Dagblad 1.4.2015


About Ottone in villa - Copenhagen Opera Festival 2014:

  •  "Leif Aruhn-Solén, an agile tenor, running on stilts while singing coloraturas, master the servant Decio with the wit of a Calabrian cucumber seller." - Frankfurter Allgemeine 8.8.2014


About Dido & Aeneas - Offend the gods and love obey - Göteborg 2014:

  •  "Aruhn-Solén's "When I am laid..." is among the most beautiful I have ever heard." - Expressen 20.1.2014


About Die Pilger von Mekka - Salzburger Landestheater 2013:

  • "Comic in the acting and with a good voice, the Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén as Osmin, in several scenes, almost had the lead role." - der-neue-merker.eu
  • "Leif Aruhn-Solen in the role of Osmin [is] convincing both vocally and as actor" - drehpunktkultur.at 28.10.2013


About St. Matthew Passion - Opera Queensland 2013:

  • "Swedish guest artist Leif Aruhn-Solen as the Evangelist delivers the narrative links magnificently in a crystalline tenor" - The Australian 22.3.2013
  • "Weaving it all together vocally is Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solen as the Evangelist, his brilliant singing complemented by his command of the stage and interactions with the other performers." - Stagediary.com 22.3.2013
  • "Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solen brings him [the Evangelist] alive as a participant in the story, as he reacts and expresses his own distress in his pure clear voice." - Curtain Call 26.3.2013
  • "The role of narrator and The Evangelist sung by Leif Aruhn-Solen in a consistently persuasive tenor [was] a delight." - au.artshub.com 25.3.2013
  • "I find myself grasping for superlatives when it comes to our Evangelist, Leif Aruhn-Solén. The Evangelist's part is huge. Absolutely huge. It is entirely recitative, entirely flexible, and requires enormous musical and dramatic resources to bring it off. It is written very high in the voice and requires a tenor with superb vocal resources to perform it without it sounding difficult. And unlike the more usual concert performances of this work, in this production Leif (like all the other principals) performs from memory. It is a massive undertaking and we are so very lucky to have him as part of the team. This is a quality of performance of the Evangelist that we very rarely hear, even on recordings." - grahamabbottsstuff.blogspot.com 15.3.2013


About Karlsson på taket - Malmö Opera 2011/2012:

  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén twinkles with his eyes and is really boyish in the role as Lillebror. In addition, his slender tenor voice is ideal for the role." - Helsingborgs Dagblad 21.12.2011
  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén sings the role of Lillebror with a well modulated tenor voice and a wonderful childlike large-eyedness" - Skånska Dagbladet 18.12.2011
  • "Lillebror's red-orange, Tintin-like cheeky haircut signals that this is an adventurous boy with a vivid imagination and Leif Aruhn-Solén sings him with strong intensity." - Svenska Dagbladet 19.12.2011
  • "There is no reason to complain about the vocal achievements and best of the singers is, without doubt, Leif Aruhn-Solén" - kulturbloggen.com 19.12.2011


About Messiah - Holmen's Church, Copenhagen 2010:

  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén offered, with his compressed, yet light weighted and delightful tenor voice, new and refreshing ornaments, as it should be in the baroque performance practice." - Politiken 11.12.2010


About L'infideltà delusa - Società di Quartetti, Milan 2009:

  • "The vocal execution is good: I'm thinking in particular of the exquisite tenor «di grazia» Leif Aruhn-Solén" - Corriere della Sera 22.5.2009


About L'Opera Seria - Drottningholms Slottsteater 2008:

  • "The light tenor voice of Leif Aruhn-Solén easily bends in fantastic phrasings but is also used for cruel sadism." - Svenska Dagbladet 4.8.2008
  • "The soloists are overall good, in particular Karolina Andersson and Leif Aruhn-Solén, who shows that a good parody demands vocal lightness and virtuosity." - Dagens Nyheter 4.8.2008


About Aminta - il rè pastore - CD on Harmonia Mundi K617:

  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén assumes perfectly the heroical traits of Alessandro" - Le Diamant d'Opéra No. 20
  • "A strong cast has been assembled, with a ringing tenor, Leif Aruhn-Solén, as Alexander the Great" -  Early Music 2008 No. 3
  • "Leif Aruhn-Solén convinces absolutely in the formidable role of Alessandro" - CLASSICA


About Ifigenia in Aulide - CD on Harmonia Mundi K617:

  • "In the first row, the striking capacities of Leif Aruhn-Solén as Agamennone. His coloraturas flow easily and secure to the melodic climax; his voice seem to have no limits, whether in the high or in the lower range." - Opernwelt, March - 2007
  • "Of the five singers, only the pleasing, slender-toned young Swedish tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén, as Agamemnon, has a sufficiently secure coloratura technique." - Gramophone, April - 2007


Contact: leif@aruhn-solen.com