Martti Talvela
Encyclopedia
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic bass.
Born in Hiitola
Khiytola
Khiytola is a settlement in Lahdenpohja district of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, and the railroad junction of the Vyborg–Joensuu and Saint Petersburg–Hiitola railroads. Before the Winter War it was a municipality of the Viipuri province of Finland....
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
(now in the Republic of Karelia
Republic of Karelia
The Republic of Karelia is a federal subject of Russia .-Geography:The republic is located in the northwestern part of Russia, taking intervening position between the basins of White and Baltic seas...
), he studied in Lahti
Lahti
Lahti is a city and municipality in Finland.Lahti is the capital of the Päijänne Tavastia region. It is situated on a bay at the southern end of lake Vesijärvi about north-east of the capital Helsinki...
and Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, and made his operatic debut in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
in 1960 as Sparafucile
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
. At 203 centimetre, he was the tallest singer of his century. He trained as a boxer in his youth and developed the stamina necessary for the biggest roles. Originally Talvela was educated as a primary school teacher in Savonlinna
Savonlinna
Savonlinna is a town and a municipality of inhabitants in the southeast of Finland, in the heart of the Saimaa lake region. The Finnish name of the town means "Castle of Savonia" and the Swedish name means "Newcastle".- History :...
, Eastern Finland (1952–1956), and he worked in that occupation at three schools (1957–1960). He sang at the Stockholm Royal Opera
Royal Swedish Opera
Kungliga Operan is Sweden's national stage for opera and ballet.-Location and Environment:...
in Sweden from 1961 to 1962, before becoming a regularly employed singer at the Deutsche Oper
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
(German Opera) of Berlin in 1962. In 1970, the Senate (government)
Senate of Berlin
The Senate of Berlin is the executive body governing the city of Berlin, which at the same time is a state of Germany. According to the Constitution of Berlin the Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and up to eight Senators appointed by the Governing Mayor, two of whom are appointed ...
of West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
formally granted him the rank of chamber singer. He worked as the artistic leader of the Savonlinna Opera Festival
Savonlinna Opera Festival
Savonlinna Opera Festival is held annually in the city of Savonlinna in Finland. The Festival takes place at the medieval Olavinlinna , built in 1475...
from 1972 to 1979. At New York's Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, he performed the role of Boris Godunov 39 times between 1974 and 1987. He was especially acclaimed as the title character in Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
and as Pimen from the same work, as Paavo Ruotsalainen
Paavo Ruotsalainen
Paavo Ruotsalainen was a Finnish farmer and lay preacher.Born in Tölvänniemi as the oldest son of plain farmers, he received his first bible at age six. At the time of his confirmation he had already read it three times. His preoccupation with the words of the bible gained him the nickname...
in The Last Temptations
The Last Temptations
The Last Temptations is an opera in two acts by Joonas Kokkonen to a libretto by Lauri Kokkonen. Along with Leevi Madetoja's Pohjalaisia and Aarre Merikanto's Juha, it is considered one of the most important Finnish operas. The opera deals with the life of the late eighteenth- and early...
, as a Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
singer (King Marke
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
, Hunding
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
, Fasolt
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
, Fafner
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
, Hagen
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
(one critic described his Hagen as an "elemental force") and Titurel
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
), as Sarastro, Dosefei
Khovanshchina
Khovanshchina is an opera in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto based on historical sources...
, and Prince Gremin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
, as King Phillip II, the Grand Inquisitor and, in the later part of his career, the title character in Glinka's Ivan Susanin
A Life for the Tsar
A Life for the Tsar , as it is known in English, although its original name was Ivan Susanin is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. The original Russian libretto, based on historical events, was written by Nestor Kukolnik, Georgy Fyodorovich Rozen,...
. As his final record he left, terribly thinned out by illness, a warm and heartfelt version of Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
. He also left at least two recorded performances of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death
Songs and Dances of Death
Songs and Dances of Death is a song cycle for voice and piano by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in the mid-1870s, to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer....
– one with full orchestra and one with piano accompaniment.
The combination of vocal depth, dark timbre, and sheer size made him stand out in every part he sang, and his bass seemed to extend effortlessly without the "break" that most basses have to resort to hit their low notes, and without losing richness on high notes. He was a fine vocal actor who always brought a certain air of lugubrious dignity to his roles, even to pure-evil roles like Hagen and the Grand Inquisitor.
He can be seen performing as Boris Godunov, as Sarastro, as Osmin
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, and as Don Fernando
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
.
During the last eight years of his life (1981 to 1989), he worked as a farmer on the Inkilänhovi (Inkilä Court) farm in Juva
Juva
Juva is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Southern Savonia region some North-East of Helsinki. It was founded on 19 January 1442, and is the oldest parish/municipality in Finland whose exact date of birth is known...
, Eastern Finland, while continuing his official career as an opera singer. His health had begun to decline in 1975, when he was diagnosed with diabetes and gout. In 1982 alone, he suffered two heart attacks at the Metropolitan Opera. Stomach problems also plagued him at times in the 1980s.
Talvela died at age 54 while dancing at his daughter's wedding in Juva.