Lindroos was born to a musical family in
Pohja, a village in the Swedish-speaking region of Finland. His father Bertel was the organist in Pohja's Swedish-language Lutheran Church and his mother Hjördis a singer in the church choir and local concerts. He initially studied to be a
church cantor and organist at the
Sibelius Academy and in his early years worked as a cantor. After completing his studies at the Sibelius Academy in 1964 he studied privately in Helsinki with the soprano
Jolanda di Maria Petris who retrained his voice from
bass-baritone to
tenor. His tenor voice retained its baritonal
timbre, and he would later specialise in the
spinto repertoire. Radames in
Aida, Manrico in
Il trovatore, Cavaradossi in
Tosca, Don José, in
Carmen, Bacchus in
Ariadne auf Naxos and the title role in
Parsifal were amongst his best known roles. Lindroos made his stage debut with the
Finnish National Opera in 1967 as Rodolfo in
La bohème. A two-year contract with the
Gothenburg Opera followed in 1969. He was engaged by the
Royal Danish Opera in 1971 and appeared regularly with that company as a leading soloist until 1985. In between his early engagements in Scandinavia, he continued his private vocal studies in Rome with Licinio Francardi and
Luigi Ricci and in Treviso with Marcello Del Monaco (the brother of tenor
Mario Del Monaco). His international career took off in the 1970s when he began appearing regularly at the
Vienna State Opera and the opera companies of Munich and Hamburg as well as touring internationally with the Finnish National Opera. Amongst the other opera houses where he appeared were London's
Royal Opera House (as the Duke of Mantua in
Rigoletto and Bacchus in
Ariadne auf Naxos), the
Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (as Don José in
Carmen), and the
Teatro Regio di Parma (as Don José). Lindroos was awarded Denmark's
Order of the Dannebrog in 1979 and Finland's
Order of the White Rose in 1983. He was also awarded with
Beniamino Gigli Prize in 1994. ==Roles created==