update 07/03

 

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       JAAKKO RYHÄNEN, bass

The Finnish bass Jaakko Ryhänen was born in Tampere and became an elementary school teacher before turning his attention towards a musical career. He studied in Helsinki, Copenhagen and Rome and made his opera debut in 1972 as a guest with the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki where he has been a permanent ensemble member since 1975. In his home country he is also a regular guest at the Savonlinna Opera Festival each Summer.
 

His international career commenced in 1981 when he made his Bolshoi Opera debut as Banquo in Verdi’s Macbeth and was furthered in 1983 when he sang in a performance of Joonas Kokkonen’s The Last Temptations presented by the Finnish National Opera at the Metropolitan Opera New York.
 

During his career Jaakko Ryhänen has sung in all the leading opera houses around the world including Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, La Scala, Bolshoi Theatre, the Marinski Theatre, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Zürich, Teatro La Fenice Venice, Paris, Chicago Lyric and Los Angeles.
His repertoire includes most of the leading bass roles in the repertoire such as Daland/The Flying Dutchman, Sarastro/The Magic Flute, Prince Gremin/ Eugene Onegin, Fiesco/Simon Boccanegra, Osmin/The Abduction from the Serail, Boris/Boris Godunov, Leporello & Komtur/Don Giovanni, Hunding/The Valkyrie, Fafner/Rheingold, Landgraf/Tannhäuser, Philip II/Don Carlos, Ramphis/Aida, Rocco/Fidelio, Basilio/The Barber of Seville, Raimondo/Lucia di Lammermoor, Highpriest/Nabucco, Sparafucile/Rigoletto.
 

Ryhänen's concert repertoire is wide ranging and includes the sacred vocal works of Bach, Beethoven, Dvorak, Haydn, Handel, Mozart, Rossini and Verdi. These and other works have been performed in the great concert halls around the world with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Gennadi Rozhdestvenski.
In honour of his notable contribution to Finnish music Ryhänen was awarded with the Pro-Finlandia medal in 1989.
 

 

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