Lättilä also wants to break the traditional myth that suffering is part of making art.
The department currently has around 50 majors and 100 minors. Lättilä, who studied the singing profession in her doctoral dissertation, aims to teach that singing is a profession and a job just like anything else.
– I want to debunk the myth of the suffering artist and the idea that it is not worth becoming a singer unless you are obsessed with it. Singing is a job, just like anything else.
According to Lättilä, however, the profession and work of a singer are still associated with unpleasant phenomena that have already disappeared from many other fields. For example, the appearance of an opera singer may be the subject of direct, and sometimes veiled, criticism. Lättilä wants to tackle this phenomenon in her teaching work and in her role as head of subject.
– For the sake of art, a singer doesn’t have to suffer appearance criticism or pats on the butt, or anything else that you don’t have to suffer in normal jobs.
Is that happening? Lättilä was asked on the Half-past-the-Sea program about slapping or sexual harassment.
– Many times it has been thought that we don’t talk about this now, that we don’t go to our own gigs, but there has been a lot of talk about it. Fortunately, times are getting better, and that bad behavior is decreasing in the industry all the time. Our idea is to raise a young generation of singers who at least have not been treated badly or humiliated at school.
In practice, according to Lättilä, this means, for example, that the Sibelius Academy does not interfere with the appearance of young singers.
– Then when these slightly better-treated singers get into working life, they may not later feel the need to squat the next generation of singers in decisive positions.
*See here the entire interview in the half past seven program:*