Karita Mattila, soprano

SOPRANO

Karita Mattila

The lyrical beauty of Karita Mattila’s voice and her innate sense of theatre have set her apart as one of the most sought-after operatic sopranos in the world today.

In demand by every major opera house, new roles this season include Herodias (Salome) in Lydia Steier’s new production for Opéra national de Paris under Simone Young; and for the Canadian Opera Company under Johannes Debus; and her anticipated debut as Strauss’ Klytämnestra (Elektra) under Sir Donald Runnicles at the Deutsche Opera, Berlin.

Other recent outstanding performances in her remarkable career include a triumphant return to the Salzburg Festival as La zia principessa (Suor Angelica) in Christof Loy’s new staging of Il trittico and conducted by Franz Welser-Möst; Poulenc’s La voix humaine staged especially for her by Finnish National Opera under Dalia Stasevaska; and in Glaus Guth’s award-winning production of Jenůfa for The Royal Opera, Covent Garden – all of which were internationally streamed and broadcast.

Of her many iconic roles, Janáček’s Emilia Marty (Věc Makropulos) has been acclaimed worldwide including at San Francisco Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Finnish National Opera and at the BBC Proms; Sieglinde (Die Walküre) at Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera, Marie (Wozzeck) at the Royal Opera House, and Madame de Croissy (Dialogues des Carmelites) under Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Metropolitan Opera in a performance broadcast worldwide in the Live in HD series.

In addition to two Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording – Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Sir George Solti (1998) and Jenůfa under Bernard Haitink (2004) – Ms Mattila has many recordings to her credit, highlights of which include Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder under Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon) – recently selected as the performance of choice by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library; and her 40^th birthday concert in front of an audience of 12,000 in Helsinki (Ondine).

Mattila has won numerous awards throughout a distinguished career and received the Order of the Lion of Finland, First Class Commander in 2020. Her other notable awards include Musical America’s Musician of the Year and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; and in the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for her “unforgettable incarnations of both Kostelnička and Emilia Marty”.

A native of Finland, Mattila trained at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Liisa Linko-Malmio and subsequently with Vera Rózsa with whom she studied for almost 20 years. Her experience is now highly sought after and recent invitations to give masterclasses include the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, Lauluakatemia, Helsinki and The Birgit Nilsson Museum and she sat on the jury panel for the 2021 Toivo Kuula Competition.