The Finnish baritone Arttu Kataja studied singing in Helsinki and has twice won the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg. Since 2006 he has been a permanent member of the ensemble at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, where he has already sung the major Mozart roles in his fach. He has also appeared as Peter Besenbinder/Hänsel und Gretel, Marcello/La Bohème and Sharpless/Butterfly. In addition to Daniel Barenboim, Philippe Jordan, Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle and Omer Meir Wellber were his partners on the podium.
Guest engagements have taken him to the Theater an der Wien (Mr. Slender/Salieri's Falstaff), the Théâtre du Capitole (Speaker of the Temple/The Magic Flute, Scherasmin/Oberon, Schaunard/La Bohéme), the Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile (Mr. Flint/Billy Budd, Belcore/L'elisir d'amore), the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Figaro, Masetto, Guglielmo), the Strasbourg Festival, the Savonlinna Opera Festival (Leporello/Don Giovanni, Papageno, Morales/Carmen, Marullo/Rigoletto), the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki (Il viaggio a Reims, Le nozze di Figaro, Arabella, Così fan tutte, Andrea Chénier), the Tampere Opera (Belcore, Sharpless, Marcello, Germont) and to Japan, together with Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin State Opera. He also appeared in the production of Orlando Paladino under the direction of René Jacobs.
His busy concert schedule includes many national and international performances. He has repeatedly worked with René Jacobs in concerts and recordings, among others with the Akademie für Alte Musik, the RIAS Kammerchor, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and the Basel Chamber Orchestra. The same applies to his collaboration with Frieder Bernius and the Musikpodium Stuttgart. He has also performed with his wide-ranging repertoire with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Rinaldo Alessandrini), the Int. Bachakademie Stuttgart (Hans-Christoph Rademann), the Zürcher Sing-Akademie (Florian Helgath), the Dresdner Philharmonie (Michael Sanderling), the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra (Hartmut Haenchen), the NDR Radiophilharmonie and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Andrew Manze), the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (James Gaffigan), the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra (Andris Poga) and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Nicholas Collon).
Recent highlights include the release of his latest CD together with mezzo-soprano Katharina Kammerloher and pianist Eric Schneider with Mahler's songs from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”, the Brahms Requiem at the Rheingau Music Festival, Berlioz' La Damnation de Faust at the Coro e Orquestra Gulbenkian in Lisbon under Hannu Lintu, Bruckner's Mass No. 1 with the RIAS Kammerchor at the Philharmonie Berlin, a tour of the Netherlands with the Christmas Oratorio and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, B' Rock and under the direction of Peter Dijkstra, and Leoš Janáček's “The Excursions of Mr. Broucek” with the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle. On the opera stage, he makes his role debut as Germont in Verdi's Traviata at Tampere Opera in Finland and at his home in Berlin, the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro and Capulet in Roméo et Juliette under Giuseppe Mentuccia.
Arttu Kataja's recordings include Winterreise (Alba 2022) and Serious Songs (Alba 2020) with pianist Pauliina Tukiainen, Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Carus, 2019), St. Matthew Passion (Harmonia Mundi, 2013).