She was noted for her technical agility and pearly light coloratura voice combined excellent stage presence.

Born Hjördis Sophie Tilgmann, Pia Ravenna came from a Swedish-speaking musical family.

Her brother, Arnold Tilgmann, was a tenor who combined a life in the printing business with a career on the operatic stage.

In 1935, at the Finnish National Opera they acted together, Pia as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Arnold as Almaviva together with Feodor Chaliapin.

In Sweden she studied with Madame Charles Cahier, and in Milan her teacher was Frederico Corrado.

Besides giving concerts in Nordic countries Pia Ravenna appeared in 1921 at the Monte Carlo Opera with Nellie Melba.

After her years in Egypt she spent most of the 1920s touring in Italy and Central and Eastern Europe, giving concerts and performing as a guest singer in opera houses from Berlin to Bucharest.

She appeared also in operettas in Madame Pompadour in 1928, and in the Spanish Nightingale in 1933 at the Swedish Theater in Finland.

Reportedly multilingual, she used her language talent in translating Tex Willer when it arrived to Finland in 1953.