Matti Salminen Biography

Matti Salminen (Born July 7, 1945, in Turku) is a Finnish bass singer. One of the leading basses of our time, Matti Salminen has sung in all of the most important opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan and Bayreuth Festival. He has a contract at the Zurich opera and he also frequently performs in his native Finland. Most of all he has been admired in such Wagner roles as Gurnemanz and Titurel (Parsifal), King Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Fasolt and Fafner (Das Rheingold / Siegfried) and Hagen (Götterdämmerung). Other important roles are Philip II (Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi), Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) and title roles of The Horseman by Aulis Sallinen and Rasputin by Einojuhani Rautavaara.