Karita Mattila (born September 5, 1960 in Somero, Finland), is a leading opera soprano. She won the first Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 1983 and graduated from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki where she studied with Liisa Linko-Malmio. She continued her studies in London with Vera Rozsa.
Mattila made her Covent Garden debut with the Royal Opera as Fiordiligi in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in 1986. She appears with top orchestras and in top opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, London, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Bastille, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Vienna State Opera, Berlin and Salzburg.
Karita Mattila's first New York Salome was described as a performance such as had not been seen at the Metropolitan opera for decades; Mattila created a sensation when during a 2004 production of Salome at the Met, she stripped naked during the Dance of the Seven Veils. Her subsequent Katya Kabanová inspired 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."
She was named Musician of the Year 2005 by Musical America that describes her "the most electrifying singing actress of our day, the kind of performer who renews an aging art form and drives the public into frenzies."
Among the awards she has received is one of France’s highest cultural honours, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2003).
