Mika Kares has established himself as one of today’s most sought-after basses. Following his studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Kares made his debut performing the title role of Le nozze di Figaro at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. His vast repertoire covers all the great Italian and German composers such as Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Mozart, in addition to the most important roles of the Russian and slavic tradition. Kares regularly guests at the most renowned houses and international festivals in the world and worked with conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Teodor Currentzis, Fabio Luisi, Marco Armiliato, Marc Minkowski, Alain Altinoglu, Thomas Hengelbrock, Zubin Mehta, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Past seasons’ opera highlights include Sarastro/Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Il Commendatore/Don Giovanni at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Nationale Opera in Amsterdam and at the Salzburg Festival, Jacopo Fiesco/Simon Boccanegra at the Opéra National de Paris (R: Calixto Bieito), König Marke/Tristan und Isolde, Sarastro/Zauberflöte, Massimiliano/I Masnadieri, Oroveso/Norma, Raimondo/Lucia di Lammermoor and Balthazar/La Favorite at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Gremin/Eugene Onegin at the Vienna State Opera, Landgraf Hermann/Tannhäuser at Zürich Opera, Zaccaria/Nabucco at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Grand Inquisitor/Don Carlos at Teatro Real de Madrid, Ramfis/Aida at Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels, Enrico VIII/Anna Bolena at Opéra de Lausanne, as well as Wotan/Das Rheingold at the Ruhrtriennale.

In addition, Mika Kares is very sought after as a concert artist, his broad repertoire including key works, such as Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart’ 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 Symphonies No 13 and 14 by Shostakovich.

Recent past highlights include concerts of Adriana Lecouvreur/Prince de Boullion with Anna Netrebko and Marco Armiliato at the Salzburg Festival, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra as well as at the BBC Proms under Sakari Oramo, Mozart’s Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti, Verdi’s Requiem (under Jun Märkl) and 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, Rossini’s Stabat Mater under Marcus Creeed in Utrecht, as well as a concertante performance of Bluebeard’s Castle with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki, which was released on CD on BIS Records.

The season 2021/22 includes Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Padre Guardiano and Marchese di Calatrava/Forza del destino further to a revival of Tristan und Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera, and the title role in Bluebeard’s Castle at the Salzburg Festival. Concerts in this season bring Mika Kares to Copenhagen for Verdi’s Requiem with Fabio Luisi and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, to Luxembourg for Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 with Christoph Campestrini and the Solistes Européens, to Madrid for Dvorak’s Stabat Mater with Christoph König and the RTVE Orchestra, and to Berlin and Baden-Baden with Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in concert with Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker.