Karita Mattila

Biography

Soprano Karita Mattila will make her first appearance at the National Theatre Opera in the 2024/25 season as Kostelnička (Jenůfa). She appears regularly in the major opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Châtelet and Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Vienna State Opera, Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg, and many others.

Recent outstanding performances include Klytämnestra (Elektra) at the Royal Opera House in London and at the Deutsche Opera, Berlin, Herodias (Salome) and Emilia Marty (Makropulos Affair) at the Opéra national de Paris, Kostelnička (Jenůfa) at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at the Bavarian State Opera, La zia principessa (Suor Angelica) at the Salzburg Festival, Ortrud (Lohengrin) at the Savonlinna Festival and at the Bavarian State Opera, Herodias (Salome) at the Opéra national de Paris, Houston Grand Opera and Canadian Opera Company, Sieglinde (Die Walküre) at the San Francisco Opera, Foreign Princess (Rusalka) and Emilia Marty (Makropulos Affair) at the Opéra national de Paris, Kabanicha (Káťa Kabanová) at the Berlin State Opera, Madame de Croissy (Dialogues des Carmélites) at the Metropolitan Opera, and others.

Karita Mattila has won numerous awards throughout a distinguished career and received the Order of the Lion of Finland, First Class Commander in 2020. Her other notable awards include Musical America’s Musician of the Year and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; and in the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for her ​“unforgettable incarnations of both Kostelnička and Emilia Marty”. A native of Finland, Mattila trained at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Liisa Linko-Malmio and subsequently with Vera Rózsa with whom she studied for almost 20 years.