Bass-Baritone/Bass
2000 First lessons in Savonlinna Aino Ackté institute with Kammersänger Tom Krause and stage director Eija Tolpo
2008-2010 Collaboration with Finnish National Opera and Kammersänger Matti Salminen's foundation: an apprentice in Finnish National Opera
2010 Working with Maestro Daniel Barenboim in Teatro alla Scala in Milan
2010-15 Debut and engagements in Savonlinna Opera Festival
2019 Engagement as a permanent soloist at the Finnish National Opera
2023 debut as Daland in "Der fiegende Holländer" at Tampere Opera
Matti Turunen continues the great tradition of Finnish bass singers. His most important tutors have been Matti Salminen and Jaakko Ryhänen, but he also worked with Tom Krause, Jorma Hynninen, James Vaughn (La Scala) and Jeffrey Goldberg (Metropolitan Opera) among others.
The Helsinki based bass has been a soloist of the Finnish National Opera since 2019 and performs with the biggest Finnish orchestras and festivals including Savonlinna Opera Festival. Turunen has sung Fasolt in Das Rheingold (cover) with Daniel Barenboim in The Ring at Teatro Alla Scala in 2010, Colline (La bohème) with Patrick Fournillier at the Finnish National Opera and Hunding (Die Walküre). His roles also include Eremit (Der Freischütz), Zuniga (Carmen), Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni) and Bartolo (Le Nozze di Figaro).
During the 2022/23 season, Matti added several new roles to his repertoire: Timur (Turandot) and Fafner (Siegfried), both at the FNO, as well as Daland (Der fliegende Holländer), which he sang at the Tampere Opera in February 2023. He featured Sarastro in the Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) in several productions.
Recent engagements include Commendatore (Don Giovanni) at the Savonlinna Opera Festival 2024, where he retuned in 2025 as Varlaam (Boris Godunov) and Timur (Turandot), Rocco in Beethoven’s Fidelio in Tampere and Sarastro in the Hong Kong Opera production of the Magic Flute by Mozart. This season he will make his German debut as Pazjuk at the Munich State Opera in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Christmas Eve, staged by Barrie Kosky. In the summer of 2026 he will return to the Savonlinna Festival as Bartolo in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.
