Born in Laitila, Mika Kares studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and was a member of Baden State Opera 2005–2010. He has since established himself as one of today’s internationally most sought-after basses with a vast repertoire covering all the great Italian and German composers such as Verdi, Wagner and Mozart, in addition to the most important roles of the slavic and Finnish tradition. Kares regularly guests at the most renowned houses and festivals worldwide, his roles including Hagen (Götterdämmerung), Hunding (Die Walküre), Fafner, Fasolt (Rheingold, Siegfried), Herrmann (Tannhäuser), King Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Heinrich der Vogler (Lohengrin), Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni), Jacopo Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra), Zaccaria (Nabucco), King René (Iolanta), Ivan (Khovanshchina) and the title role of Bluebeard’s Castle, for which he earned a Grammy nomination for a 2021 recording on BIS. Additional recordings include Boris Godunov with Gothenburg Symphony and Kent Nagano (BIS, 2019). Mika Kares was shortlisted as Male Singer of the Year at the 2023 International Opera Awards.