Peter Mattei

Peter Mattei emerged in the early 1990s as one of Sweden's most important young baritones.

After his musical studies in Stockholm, he debuted in 1990 in Stockholm in Mozart's opera La Finta giardiniera. In 1992 he sang in the little known opera Falstaff by Salieri, and in the 1994-1995 season of the Royal Stockholm Opera he sang Figaro in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro for the first time.

He has become known as one of the finest Mozart baritones. He sang Don Giovanni for the first time at the Gothenburg Opera House in the 94-95 season, and debuted in Britain in the same role in autumn of 1995, at the Scottish Opera. He was quickly invited back to sing Guglielmo in Così fan tutte.

His first appearance at the Salzburg Festival was in Fidelio, singing Don Fernando under the baton of Sir Georg Solti. Claudio Abbado selected him as the bass soloist in Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Other roles in his expanding repertory include Papageno in The Magic Flute, Lionel in Tchaikovsky's Joan of Arc, Papageno in The Magic Flute, and Harlekin in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. In the 1999-2000 season he again took the part of Figaro, this time in Rossini's Barber of Seville, and returned to Tchaikovsky in the title role of Eugene Onegin, and in 2001 was scheduled to take the role of Figaro's antagonist, the Count, in Mozart's opera, at the Salzburg Opera, and as his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2002.

He is active on the concert stage. In addition to the St. Matthew and St. John Passions of Bach he sings the Lyric Symphony of Zemlinsky, and the Mahler song cycles Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen.

He has recorded Sibelius' Kullervo and a set of songs by Stenhammar.