Performance Database

Mika Kares has established himself as one of today’s internationally most sought-after basses. His vast repertoire covers all the great Italian and German composers such as Verdi, Wagner and Mozart, in addition to the most important roles of the slavic and Finnish tradition.

Distinguished by his colourful bass voice, Kares regularly guests at the most renowned houses and festivals worldwide and has worked with conductors including Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Teodor Currentzis, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Fabio Luisi, Marc Minkowski, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Franz Welser-Möst, Sebastian Weigle, François-Xavier Roth, Klaus Mäkelä, Kent Nagano, Kirill Petrenko, Marco Armiliato, Thomas Guggeis and Tarmo Peltokoski.

Recent seasons’ opera highlights include i.a. Hagen/Götterdämmerung at the Bayreuth Festival, the Vienna State Opera and Berlin State Opera (where he also sang Fasolt and Hunding, as well as Vodník/Rusalka, Ivan/Khovanshchina and Zaccaria/Nabucco in new productions), Bluebeard/Bluebeard’s Castle at the Salzburg Festival, Sarastro/Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, Il Commendatore/Don Giovanni at The Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Salzburg and Savonlinna Festivals, Daland/The Flying Dutchman at the Lyric Opera, Jacopo Fiesco/Simon Boccanegra at the Opéra National de Paris, King Heinrich/Lohengrin, King Marke/Tristan und Isolde, Padre Guardiano/La forza del destino and Balthazar/La Favorite at the Bavarian State Opera, Gremin/Eugene Onegin at the Vienna State Opera, Landgraf Hermann/Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Zurich Opera, Zaccaria/Nabucco at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Inquisitor/The Fiery Angel at Teatro Real de Madrid, Great Inquisitor/Don Carlo at Teatro alla Scala, and Ramfis/Aida at Théâtre Royale de La Monnaie in Brussels.

In addition, Mika Kares is very sought after as a concert singer, his broad repertoire including key works such as Mozart’s Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 and Missa Solemnis, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No 8, as well as Shostakovich’s Symphonies No 13 and 14.

Recent concert highlights include concerts with Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta/King René with Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker, Strauss’ Capriccio/La Roche with Christian Thielemann, and Adriana Lecouvreur/Prince de Bouillon with Anna Netrebko and Marco Armiliato, both at the Salzburg Festival, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the hr-Sinfonieorchester as well as at the BBC Proms under the baton of Sakari Oramo, Verdi’s Requiem with the Gewandhausorchester under Franz Welser-Möst, Mozart’s Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Riccardo Muti) and the Vienna Philharmonic, Shostakovich’s Symphony no 14 under Klaus Mäkelä with the Oslo Philharmonic, Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu, as well as a concert performance of Bluebeard’s Castle with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki, which was released on CD (BIS Records) and nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award.

Additional honours include the BBC Music Magazine's Opera Award 2017 for the recording Don Giovanni with Teodor Currentzis and musicAeterna, the nomination for Best Opera Recording at the International Classical Music Awards 2019 for Boris Godunov with Kent Nagano and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the nomination at the International Opera Awards 2014 with the recording ‘Der fliegende Holländer/Le Vaisseau fantome (Wagner/Dietsch)’ with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, as well as the nomination for Male Singer of the Year at the International Opera Awards 2023.

In season 2024-25 his projects include his return to the Opéra national de Paris as Fafner/Rheingold in the new RING production by Calixto Bieito, as well as the main roles of Paavo/The Last Temptations (J. Kokkonen) at Tampere Opera and Antti/The Horseman (A. Sallinen) at the Finnish National Opera.

Furthermore, he can be heard on concert stages in Vienna, Helsinki, Copenhagen and Rotterdam.

In the summer of 2025, Kares will perform the role of Paavo as well at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, where he will also make his debut as Boris Godunov. Subsequently, he will return to the Bayreuth Festival as Hagen/Götterdämmerung and Heinrich der Vogler/Lohengrin.

In the upcoming 2025-26 season, he will be back in Paris when the third part of the RING, Siegfried, premieres with Kares as Fafner. He will also be back on stage at the Berlin State Opera as Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen in the revival of the RING by Dmitri Tcherniakov under the baton by Christian Thielemann, as well as Ivan in the revival of Khovanshchina. New productions of Don Carlo/Filippo II and Iolanta/King René will bring him back to Tampere and Helsinki.

Kares can also be heard on the concert stage in the great Wagner roles, including King Marke/Tristan und Isolde in Helsinki and Hunding/Die Walküre in Lisbon, as well as with the SWR Symphony Orchestra under Francois-Xavier Roth and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Vladimir Jurowski.