Sami Luttinen

The finnish bass Sami Luttinen studied singing at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He began his career by winning the Timo Mustakallio Singing Competition at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1993, the year in which he also made his festival debut. In 1995 he won the third prize in the International “Neue Stimmen” Competition at Gütersloh in Germany.

From 1995 to 1997 Luttinen had a contract with the Kiel Opera in Germany. Since 1997 he has been a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein's ensemble in Düsseldorf. He made his debut at the Finnish National Opera in January 2000 as Leporello in Mozart's "Don Giovanni". In April 2000 he made his debut at La Scala in Milan as Truffaldino in Richard Strauss’s "Ariadne auf Naxos" with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting, and in January 2003 he sang the Polizeikommissar in the La Scala production of Richard Strauss’s "Rosenkavalier" with Jeffrey Tate. 2006 Luttinen debuted as Seneca (L'Incoronazione di Poppea) at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In May 2008 he returned to Munich as a celebrated Kadmos in the State Opera's first scenical production of Hans Werner Henzes "Die Bassariden". Her most recent triumphs on the opera stage have been Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen at the Staatstheater Oldenburg as well as Hagen in Klagenfurt.

Sami Luttinen's operatic repertoire includes roles like Seneca (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Leporello (Don Giovanni), Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Rocco (Fidelio), Basilio (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Banco (Macbeth), Ramfis (Aida), Filippo II (Don Carlos), Colline (La Bohème), Gremin (Yevgeny Onegin), Pimen (Boris Godunov), Daland (Der Fliegende Holländer), Pogner (Die Meistersinger) Fasolt & Fafner (Das Rheingold), Hunding (Die Walküre), Hagen (Götterdämmerung), Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Méphistophélès (Faust) and Lindorf / Coppelius / Miracle / Dapertutto (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Le Père (Louise) and Claggart (Billy Budd).

In addition to his opera work, Sami Luttinen appears as a concert singer in many European countries. He can be heard on numerous radio recordings as well as on two awarded Deutsche Grammophon complete recordings of Richard Strauss' operas conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli: "Friedenstag" (Der Prälat) and "Ariadne auf Naxos" (Truffaldino). Furthermore, Luttinen appears regularly with song recitals, his repertoire ranging from the romantic German Lieder to the French mélodies and Russian and Scandinavian song treasure.