Basses do not grow on trees

Matti Salminen in conversation with Opernwelt

As Hagen in Götterdämmerung, Helsinki 1999 © Stefan Bremer

To this day, your voice has a primal, softly creaky, natural tone. Is that natural - or manufactured?

My tone? Yes, yes, it is nature. Certain teachers, however, have cultivated it. People who understood something about it, namely Luigi Ricci in Rome and Matti Lehtinen in Helsinki. Lehtinen is now…