Melis Jaatinen

The Finnish-Turkish mezzo-soprano Melis Jaatinen has established herself especially at the Nordic music scene with performances at opera houses in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Norrlandsoperan and Savonlinna opera festival, and concerts with major orchestras such as Oslo Philharmonic, Lahti and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra. She has a great passion for chamber music and works regularly with living composers creating new vocal repertoire.

After graduating from the Sibelius-Academy, Melis was engaged at the Finnish National Opera as a soloist trainee 2010-2012. There, she sang several roles including Cherubino (Mozart/ The Marriage of Figaro), Nancy (Britten/Albert Herring), Lucienne (Korngold/ Die Tote Stadt), Mercedes (Bizet/ Carmen), Sesto (Handel/ Giulio Cesare) and Zara (Reinvere/The Purge – world premiere). Since then, she has continued to widen her opera repertoire, performing both traditional opera pieces and contemporary music.

Melis made her American debut at Bard Music festival in 2011, and returned in 2013 to perform songs by Grieg and Sibelius, as well as Stravinky’s orchestral pieces Les Noces and Mavra. In 2018 she sang the role of Polina (Tchaikovsky/The Queen of Spades) at Savonlinna Opera Festival. In 2019 she had her Swedish debut in Norrlandsopera singing alto cantatas in the production We – an unknown opera by Bach? In 2022, she sang the role of Hannah after in the Finnish premiere of Laura Kaminsky’s opera As One at Satakunta musicfestival.

Melis has sung several world premieres including Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s first opera _UR (2015), Olli Kortekangas’ oratorio VIA (2017) and Gisle Kverndokk’s Syngende natt (2024). In 2019 she had her Danish debut singing the role of Kay in Hans Abrahamsen’s opera Snedronningen (The Snow Queen) at the Royal Danish Opera.

In 2022 she released her debut album Impression du Nord receiving great reviews:

“Jaatinen builds up the album’s moments in her dark coloured and precise voice with leisure and control. In the soft parts of the low- and middle register her voice shows simply fantastic international level, and there are many of them on this album (…) a wonderful debut album. (Kare Eskola, YLE 2022)