MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Excellence: The Artistry of Karita Mattila

Karita Mattila is one of today's most exciting lyric dramatic sopranos and the most successful Finnish soprano on the international scene today. She is recognised as much for the beauty and versatility of her lyric voice as for her extraordinary stage ability.

Winner of the Lappeenranta national singing competition in 1981, she studied at the Sibelius Academy as a pupil of Liisa Linko-Malmio and with Vera Rozsa in London. Since winning the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1983 she has appeared at the world's leading opera houses, in London, Paris, Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, New York, San Francisco, Washington and Chicago as well as at major Festivals of the world in repertoire which encompasses Mozart, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini and Wagner.

Among her most recent great roles have been Salome in Richard Strauss' Salome, Katya in Janácek's Katya Kabanova, Elisabeth in Verdi's Don Carlos, Chrysothemis in Strauss' Elektra and Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin. She has also made a name for herself in operetta, as Hanna Glawari in a production of Lehar's The Merry Widow that took Paris by storm some seasons ago.

Karita Mattila sings regularly with the world's great conductors including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta and Esa-Pekka Salonen. An essential component of the artist personality of Karita Mattila is that she is equally at home with performing popular music as with concert music. She has recorded several succesful discs for Ondine.

"Mattila's singing is spectacular"
- Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com