Matti Kalervo Salminen (born 7 July 1945) is a Finnish operatic bass, now retired,[1][2] who has sung at the most important opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan and Bayreuth Festival.[3] He is distinguished by an imposing figure and height (6' 5"),[4] a cavernous, heavy, dark voice with an expansive upper register, and an expressive face. According to one reviewer, in his prime Salminen was "... simply the largest bass voice in captivity. It is not just its roar in powering over Wagner's maximum orchestra, but the way he carves the sonority and forms the color."[5]
Salminen has a special gift for playing menacing, threatening characters. He performed as Fafner and Hagen in the PBS video broadcast Ring Cycle from the Metropolitan Opera, for the largest viewing-audience of the Ring in history.
- ^ "Matti Salminen - Bass, Retired". www.operamusica.com.
- ^ He is listed as "retired", but he apparently sang as Pogner the Goldsmith in Die Meistersinger in April 2019, see here: https://bachtrack.com/review-meistersinger-barenboim-moses-koch-vogt-kleiter-staatsoper-berlin-april-2019
- ^ Ruth-Esther Hillila, Barbara Blanchard Hong (1997) Historical dictionary of the music and musicians of Finland Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 359 ISBN 0-313-27728-1
- ^ "Lawrence Journal-World - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.
- ^ "Mariedi Anders Artist Management". andersmanagement.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009.