MATTI SALMINEN Daland, bass
Artistic Director of The Flying Dutchman
 Matti Salminen is one of the finest bass singers in the world today. A member of the solo ensemble at the Zurich Opera, he is also a regular guest at the world's leading opera houses - in London, Milan, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, and the New York Metropolitan. His core repertoire consists of the great bass roles in the operas of Verdi, Mozart and Wagner.
Matti Salminen made his debut in his native Turku in spring 1966 - at the age of 19, having already made a name for himself as tango singer Esa Pasa - in the opera The Ostrobothnians by Leevi Madetoja, in which he sang the part of Karjanmaan Köysti. The critics were unanimous in predicting a grand career for him. By 1968 he was already singing at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, and the following year, at only four days' notice, stepped in as King Philip II in the Finnish National Opera production of Verdi's Don Carlos, a role that was soon to be one of his most magnificent.
Contracted to the Finnish National Opera until 1972, Matti Salminen has since made guest appearances there in such parts as the title role in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Rocco in Beethoven's Fidelio, Hagen in Wagner's Götterdämmerung (a role he has sung in almost all the major productions of this opera the world over), and most recently Gurnemanz in Parsifal. With the exception of a few years, he has been singing at the Savonlinna Opera Festival since 1968, as the soloist in both operas and concerts. His Savonlinna roles have included Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Ramfis in Aida and the Padre Guardiano in La forza del destino by Verdi, Daland in The Flying Dutchman, the Landgrave in Tannhäuser and King Mark in Tristan und Isolde by Wagner. He has sung all the bass leads at the Wagner festival in Bayreuth.
Salminen also enjoys singing contemporary Finnish opera: in 1975 he took the title role in the world premiere of Aulis Sallinen's The Horseman at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, and later the title roles in two new Finnish operas premiered at the Finnish National Opera: Sallinen's King Lear in 2000 and Einojuhani Rautavaara's Rasputin in 2003. This latter production has also been on tour to St. Petersburg. Salminen can further be heard as the soloist with the most celebrated orchestras the world over, on discs and videos of countless operas and symphonic works, and several light music releases. Plans for the next few years include a disc of Turku songs with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1995 the Berlin Senate awarded Matti Salminen the title of Berliner Kammersänger in recognition of his artistic achieve-ments at the Deutsche Opera in the city. The prestigious title of Kammersänger has since been awarded him by Munich and Vienna as well.
It is a great honour for Turku that Matti Salminen, the city's own world-famous bass, agreed to assume the artistic directorship of Verdi's Requiem in 2001 and our production of The Flying Dutchman. The frigate Suomen Joutsen was moved to its present mooring in 2002 and Matti Salminen, with Päivi Nisula, the CCA and the Turku Philharmonic gave a concert to mark the centenary of our national ship in a programme of music related to the sea, ranging from Wagner's The Flying Dutchman to Malmsten's Mikki-hiiri merihädässä, a Finnish evergreen in which Mickey Mouse gets caught in a storm at sea. (In the encore demanded by the wild applause he even sang the difficult soprano part of Mickey Mouse!) In August last year Verdi's Requiem was performed at Turku's big new summer music arena, like a prelude to this year's opera. The bass soloist was Matti Salminen.
Matti Salminen has been singing with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra ever since he was a teenager. He first appeared at the Concert Hall on December 2, 1962, when he was 17 years old and one of the performers in a youth concert. About three years later, on September 19, 1965, he sang Leporello's aria from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni and an aria from Verdi's opera Simone Boccanegra at a Turku Day concert conducted by Paavo Rautio. Over the years, our great bass has appeared 19 times in all with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, in symphonic, sacred and lighter repertoire.
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