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, Hunding (Die Walküre) and Mozart’s Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte) in several productions. 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.

In the summer of 2024, Turunen debuted as a soloist at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in the role of Commendatore (Don Giovanni) and will return in 2025 as Varlaam (Boris Godunov) and Timur (Turandot). Turunen will also debut in Tampere as Rocco in Beethoven’s Fidelio and sing Sarastro in the Hong Kong Opera production of The Magic Flute by Mozart. He will also make his German debut at the Munich State Opera in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Christmas Eve.