Jorma Hynninen

Who is Jorma Hynninen?

Jorma Kalervo Hynninen is a Finnish baritone who performs regularly with the world's major opera companies. He has also worked in opera administration.

Hynninen was born on April 3, 1941 in Leppävirta, Finland. He studied from 1966 to 1970 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and also took lessons from Luigi Ricci in Rome and Kurt Overhoff in Salzburg. In 1969 he won first prize the Lappeenranta Solo Voice Competition and made his opera debut with the Finnish National Opera as Silvio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

Hynninen sang his first public concert in 1970 in Helsinki and made his debut the same year with the Finnish National Opera, where he became a permanent member until 1990. In 1971 he took first prize in the Scandinavian Singing Competition in Helsinki and in 1996 won the Cannes Classical Award.

On the opera stage, his notable roles have included Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze de Figaro, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas and MélisandePelléas et Mélisande, the role in which he made his debut at the Paris Opera, and which he sang frequently at the Hamburg State Opera.

Hynninen first came to notice in the United States in 1980 with his debut at New York's Carnegie Recital Hall. In 1984 he made his Metropolitan debut as Rodrigo in Don Carlos. In 1987 he was hailed as a "perfect Wolfram" in the Met's Tannhäuser. His international career includes performances at the Vienna Opera, Milan's La Scala, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, as well as Hamburg, Barcelona, Geneva and Berlin.