Matti Salminen
Illustration — Matti Salminen in 2009 • Illustration — Matti Salminen singing Finnish tangos in Helsinki; July, 1997 Matti Kalervo Salminen (born 7 July 1945) is a Finnish operatic bass, now retired, who has sung at the most important opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan and Bayreuth Festival. He is distinguished by an imposing figure and height (6' 5"), a cavernous, heavy, dark voice with an expansive upper register, and an expressive face. According to one reviewer, in his prime, Salminen was "..
Matti Salminen

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- Full name
- Matti Kalervo Salminen.
- Born
- 1945. · Turku.
- Nationality
- Finland.
- Occupation
- performing artist, singer and musician.
- Fields
- opera and schlager music.
- Education
- Sibelius Academy.
- Teachers
- Lea Piltti.
- Honours
- Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, Österreichischer Kammersänger, Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and Commander of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.
- Languages
- Finnish.
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Illustration — Matti Salminen in 2009 • Illustration — Matti Salminen singing Finnish tangos in Helsinki; July, 1997 Matti Kalervo Salminen (born 7 July 1945) is a Finnish operatic bass, now retired, who has sung at the most important opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan and Bayreuth Festival. He is distinguished by an imposing figure and height (6' 5"), a cavernous, heavy, dark voice with an expansive upper register, and an expressive face. According to one reviewer, in his prime, Salminen was "..
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Note VALÉORINE
Matti Salminen (born 1945) is a Finnish musician, performing artist and singer. The musician was born Matti Kalervo Salminen in Turku.
Matti Salminen studied at Sibelius Academy. The musician worked in Cologne, Helsinki and Turku.
Genres include opera and schlager music. Languages used include Finnish. Matti Salminen received Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording and Österreichischer Kammersänger.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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museum · 5db7d778-be9e-42b4-92eb-49b6f36ba5f0 · wikidata · Q712805 · wikipedia · Matti Salminen
In this article
Biography
Biography
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." 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 studied at Sibelius Academy. Training under Lea Piltti is recorded. The recorded working language is Finnish. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera and schlager music. Places of work recorded in the authority are Helsinki, Turku and Cologne. Distinctions recorded are Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, Österreichischer Kammersänger and Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Salminen was born in Turku. In his youth, he earned money for voice lessons by singing Finnish tangos in nightclubs. He has published an anthology of Finnish tangos. He first caught the public eye as a lucky understudy in the role of King Philip II, when he was just 24 years old. He continued performing this role until (almost) the end of his career; a DVD was released in 2014. Salminen is a widely videotaped singing actor with three different performances as Hagen available on DVD; also two performances as the Commendatore, several as Sarastro, two as Hunding and two as Daland. Videotaped performances and films are also available as King Phillip II, the Grand Inquisitor, Seneca, Gurnemanz, Pogner, King Marke, Kaspar, Rasputin, Boris Godunov, and Prince Ivan Khovansky. At the Bayreuth Festival he first appeared in 1976 as Titurel (Parsifal), Hunding (Die Walküre), and Fasolt (Das Rheingold) in the Jahrhundertring (Centenary Ring) in 1976, celebrating the centenary of both the festival and the first performance of the complete cycle, conducted by Pierre Boulez and staged by Patrice Chéreau, recorded and filmed in 1979 and 1980. He continued until 1989 adding Fafner (Das Rheingold, Siegfried), Daland (Der fliegende Holländer), King Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Heinrich (Lohengrin), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Landgraf (Tannhäuser) and Hagen (Götterdämmerung) to his roles there. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as King Marke on 9 January 1981, and performed 132 times there in several roles, until 28 March 2008. He sang in the premiere of Sallinen's Kuningas Lear in 2000 (King Lear, title role), and Jukka Linkola's Robin Hood in 2011 (Sheriff). Aside from operatic roles, Salminen also performs in sacred music and concert recitals. He gave a farewell concert at the Zürich Opera House in December 2016.
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Reception and standing
The scholarly and documentary record stands as follows. Recorded as having received Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording and Österreichischer Kammersänger.

Matti Salminen
Motopark

Matti Salminen
Motopark
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q712805: Matti Salminen
Reputable secondary · Wikidata
- “Matti Salminen”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Institutional database
- MusicBrainz artist record for Matti Salminen
Scholarly · MetaBrainz Foundation
scholarly publication
- Salminen, Matti (opera), Oxford Music Online, 2002
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2002
Awards and honors
• Salminen has won two Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording, in 1982 and 1991, both for recordings of Wagner. • In 2017, Salminen received the ICMA Lifetime Achievement Award. • In 1988 he received the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland. • He was recognized with the title Kammersänger in three times: in Berlin in 1995, and in Bavaria and Austria in 2003.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Matti Salminen – Bass, Retired. www.operamusica.com Dead link. February 2026.
- 2.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
- 3.Ruth-Esther Hillila, Barbara Blanchard Hong (1997) Historical dictionary of the music and musicians of Finland Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 359
- 4.Lawrence Journal-World – Google News Archive Search. news.google.com.
- 5.Mariedi Anders Artist Management. andersmanagement.com.
- 6.At Bottom, He's an Actor Who Sings : Music: When Matti Salminen was 17, he had a brief role in an amateur ensemble. That's when the 'basso cantante' decided to go classical instead of pop. Los Angeles Times. 13 December 1995.
- 7.Label: Koch Schwann (Germ.) ASIN: B00005B5MZ
- 8.VERDI: Don Carlo (Complete opera) (2014). 27 October 2014.
- 9.Metropolitan Opera Association. archives.metoperafamily.org.
- 10.Anderson, Martin. Strong and Simple. Interview with Aulis Sallinen. Finnish Music Quarterly magazine, 2/1999.
- 11.ZÜRICH/ Opernhaus: ABSCHIEDSKONZERT MATTI SALMINEN – Persönlichkeit ist das Geheimnis oder Der Fels in der Brandung. 13 November 2016.
- 12.Matti Salminen. GRAMMY.com. 19 November 2019.
- 13.Matti Salminen: "I realised the importance of the economy in expression: less is more". Pizzicato. 9 February 2017.
- 14.Suomen Leijonan Pro Finlandia -mitalin saajat 1945–2019. www.ritarikunnat.fi. 6 January 2021.
- 15.Finnisches Urgestein, basstönend – Matti Salminen zum 75. Geburtstag – neue musikzeitung. nmz.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
MusicBrainz artist record for Matti SalminenMetaBrainz Foundation
Institutional witnessscholarly publication
Salminen, Matti (opera), Oxford Music Online, 2002Crossref registry
Institutional witnessreference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
Further particulars
Held on the record
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This entry is compiled from 9 catalogued sources across 6 independent registers. The registers consulted are Crossref registry, Wikipedia, Allen Institute for AI, Internet Archive, Wikidata and MetaBrainz Foundation. Every statement above is held against the register that stated it; where the registers are silent, the entry is silent.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
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