Biography

Karita Mattila was trained at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where her teacher was Liisa Linko-Malmio. Subsequently she studied with Vera Rózsa for nearly twenty years. Ms. Mattila sings at all the world’s major opera houses and festivals, and her operatic repertory encompasses works by Beethoven, R. Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, and Janáček.

Performances of the current season include Jenůfa at the Hamburg State Opera, Sieglinde in Die Walküre with Houston Grand Opera, and the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Paris Opera. Her numerous concert appearances bring her together with Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra and to many stages of her native Finland. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances. 

Recent highlights include Leonore in Fidelio for Houston Grand Opera, Emilia Marty in Janáček’s The Makropoulos Case at the Metropolitan Opera and at San Francisco Opera, the title role of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanova at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame at the Metropolitan Opera, Marie in Wozzeck at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Emilie de Châtelet at the Opéra National de Lyon, and concert performances of Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the Saint Louis Symphony.  

Karita Mattila has many recordings to her credit on the Philips, EMI, Sony, DG, and Ondine labels. Her fortieth birthday concert, performed in front of nearly 12,000 people in Helsinki, was released on CD by Ondine. Other recordings include R. Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Claudio Abbado on the DG label; arias and scenes from the operas of Puccini, Verdi, Janáček, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and R. Strauss; German Romantic arias with Colin Davis; and Grieg and Sibelius songs with Sakari Oramo, all on Erato/Warner. She appears on Grammy winning complete recordings of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg on Decca with Georg Solti and Jenůfa on Erato/Warner with Bernard Haitink, and she has recorded Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 with Simon Rattle on EMI.

(June 2015)