Karita Marjatta Mattila was born on September 5, 1960. She is a Finnish soprano singer who performs in major opera houses around the world. These include the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Bastille, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Vienna State Opera, Toronto Roy Thomson Hall, and Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg.
Career
Karita Mattila was born in Somero and graduated from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 1983. There, she studied singing with Liisa Linko-Malmio. Later, she continued her training with Vera Rózsa in London.
In 1983, Mattila won the first Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. In 1985, she made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, performing the role of Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte.
In 1988, she appeared as Emma in the first televised production of Schubert’s Fierrabras at the Vienna State Opera. In 1990, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
In 1994, Mattila made her Spanish debut as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Madrid. In 1996, she performed her debut roles in Paris: Lohengrin in Wagner’s Lohengrin and Don Carlos in Verdi’s Don Carlos.
Mattila has won Grammy Awards for "Best Opera Recording" for Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 1998 and for Janáček’s Jenůfa in 2004. In 1998, she was awarded the Evening Standard Ballet, Opera, and Classical Music Award for "Outstanding Performance of the Year" for her role as Elisabeth in Verdi’s Don Carlos at the Royal Opera House.
In 2001, The New York Times named Karita Mattila the best singer of the year for her performance in the title role of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera. That same year, she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Opera."
Mattila’s performances in Salome and Káťa Kabanová in 2004 led the New York press to write: "When the history of the Metropolitan Opera around the time of the millennium is written, Karita Mattila will deserve her own chapter."
In 2005, Musical America named Mattila "Musician of the Year 2005," describing her as "the most electrifying singing actress of our day." In 2007, BBC Music Magazine listed Mattila as one of the top 20 sopranos of the recorded era.
In 2008, worldwide audiences saw Mattila perform Manon Lescaut by Puccini in movie theaters. In 2008 and 2009, she performed Salome by Richard Strauss and Tosca by Puccini live in high definition from the opera house.
In 2010, at Opéra National de Lyon, Mattila created the role of Émilie du Châtelet in Kaija Saariaho’s monodrama Émilie, which was dedicated to her.
In 2014, Mattila was scheduled to sing Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss with the Munich Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. However, she refused to perform when Valery Gergiev, who had publicly supported Vladimir Putin’s stance on Ukraine and gay rights, was chosen as the conductor. Gergiev was replaced with Fabio Luisi. Mattila received threats for her decision.
In 2020, Mattila played a parody of herself as an opera diva stuck in Finland in the new comic opera Covid fan tutte.
In December 2020, Mattila was awarded the Order of the Lion of Finland, Commander, First Class.
Personal life
Mattila currently lives in Naples, Florida. She moved there in the mid-2000s after living in London, England, for about twenty years.
In 1988, she met Tapio Kuneinen, who was her manager. They married in 1992 and divorced in February 2019.
She began using Twitter in October 2018 and said it helped her after her divorce.
After the sudden cancellation of her performance of Jenůfa at the Royal Opera House in late February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she moved to an apartment in Helsinki, Finland. She stayed there until she could travel and work safely again. She returned to Florida in April 2021.