Matti Salminen

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.

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.