MilesMykkanen

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  • Tenor
Credit: Katja Hentschel
Credit: Katja Hentschel

About Miles

Highlights in Miles' 2024/25 season include his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper as Graf Albert Die tote Stadt and a return to The Cleveland Orchestra for staged performances of Jenůfa under the baton of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. The tenor’s broad artistic range is also showcased in two productions at Dutch National Opera: Alfred in Barrie Kosky's new production of Die Fledermaus with chief conductor Lorenzo Viotti as well as in the world premiere of Philip Venables' new opera We Are The Lucky Ones directed by Ted Huffman.

The career of this exuberant young Finnish-American tenor was launched with a national win of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2019. He has since impressed with a series of important debuts on the world’s major stages including, last season, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where The i declared his performance in Der Fliegende Hollander “the most beautiful singing of the evening” and Opera Magazine dubbed it “so striking and brilliant” that “he managed to turn the Steersman into a principal character.”

Mykkanen has quickly become the go-to tenor for roles requiring a deft balance of power, lyricism, and dramatic acuity, including a new Ted Huffman production of L’incoronazione di Poppea at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the North American premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence at San Francisco Opera.

Additional appearances include Falstaff (Staatsoper Hamburg), Candide (Opéra de Lausanne, Ravinia, Tanglewood), Silent Night (Minnesota Opera), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Opera Philadelphia), and Boris Godunov, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Wozzeck, all at the Met. His Albert Herring at Chicago Opera Theater was praised by Opera News for “an appealing honeyed sweetness which he employed with intelligence and humor.”

Mykkanen has performed under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst(Ariadne auf Naxos with Cleveland Orchestra), Krzysztof Urbański (Carmina Burana with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), Manfred Honeck (Bruckner’s Te Deum with Pittsburgh Symphony), and Leonard Slatkin (West Side Story with New York Philharmonic and Mohammed Fairouz’s Another Time with Detroit Symphony). His in-demand interpretations of Handel’s Messiah have taken him to the symphonies of Atlanta, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and New Jersey, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. This season, he debuts with Phoenix Symphony in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Music Director Tito Muñoz amidst returns to the Cleveland Orchestra for staged performances of Jenůfa with Welser-Möst and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann.

Mykkanen’s compelling blend of charisma and honesty has engaged audiences in cabaret performances at Joe’s Pub, Neue Galerie’s Cabaret at Café Sabarsky, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he curated Lavender Nights, a live installation of queer anthems. He honed his artistic flexibility in explorations of chamber music and art song with legendary musicians like Mitsuko Uchida, Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles, and Steven Blier at the Marlboro Music Festival, New York Festival of Song, New World Symphony, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

A proud Yooper from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Mykkanen leveraged his pandemic downtime to create community around the arts in his hometown of Ironwood. Emberlight has now produced 119 individual events – including a film festival with entries from 83 countries, live performances of chamber music, cabarets, and plays, a photography show and public art installations, and performance infusions featuring regional artists in everything from Ojibwe basket weaving to wool waulking. More than 70% of those events have been free to attend, ensuring that the arts are accessible to everyone in the rural region.

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Contact

Keiron Cooke

Keiron Cooke

Associate Director
Will Pate

Will Pate

Associate Artist Manager

Representation

European Management with Askonas Holt General Management with Étude Arts

Photos

Selected Repertoire

Aucoin

Crossing (John Wormley)

Beethoven

Fidelio (Jaquino)

Berg

Wozzeck (Andres)

Berlioz

Béatrice et Bénédict (Bénédict)   •   Les Troyens (Iopas, Hylas)

Bernstein

Candide (Candide)   •   West Side Story (Tony)

Bizet

Les Pêcheurs de perles (Nadir)

Britten

Albert Herring (Albert)   •   Billy Budd (Novice)   •   A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lysander, Flute)   •   The Turn of the Screw (Peter Quint)

Delibes

Lakmé (Gérald)

Delius

A Village Romeo and Juliet (Sali)

Donizetti

L'elisir d'amore (Nemorino)

Gluck

Alceste (Admète)   •   Iphigénie en Tauride (Pylade)

Gordon

27 (Pablo Piccasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, et al.)

Handel

Acis and Galatea (Acis)

Heggie

Moby Dick (Greenhorn)

J Strauss

Die Fledermaus (Alfred)

Janáček

Jenůfa (Števa Buryja)   •   Kát’a Kabanová (Váňa Kudrjáš)   •   The Makropulos Case (Janek)

Kevin Puts

Silent Night (Nikolaus Sprink)

Lehar

The Merry Widow (Camille, Count de Rosillon)

Mazzoli

Proving Up (Miles)

Moniuszko

Halka (Jontek)

Monteverdi

L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Arnalta)

Mozart

Così fan tutte (Ferrando)   •   Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Belmonte)   •   La finta giardiniera (Contino Belfiore)   •   Don Giovanni (Don Ottavio)   •   Die Zauberflöte (Tamino)

Mussorgsky

Boris Godunov (Fool)

Poulenc

Dialogues des Carmélites (Chevalier de la Force)

Puccini

Gianni Schicchi (Rinuccio)   •   La Rondine (Prunier)

R Strauss

Ariadne auf Naxos (Brighella)   •   Capriccio (Flamand)   •   Der Rosenkavalier (Italian Tenor)   •   Salome (Narraboth)

Ravel

L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (Teapot) (Little Old Man) (Frog)

Saariaho

Innocence (Groom)

Smetana

The Bartered Bride (Jeník Vasek)

Spears

Fellow Travelers (Timothy Laughlin)

Stravinksy

The Nightingale and Short Fables (Fisherman)   •   The Rake's Progress (Tom Rakewell)

Tchaikovsky

Eugene Onegin (Lensky)

Thomas

Mignon (Wilhelm Meister)

Wagner

Der fliegende Holländer (Steuermann)   •   Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (David)

News

Press

  • Britten - Albert Herring

    Chicago Opera Theater
    Jan 2023
    • There were winning performances by Miles Mykkanen in the title role [...] With his splendid lyric tenor and endearingly awkward manner as the town's reluctant May King, Mykkanen had the full measure of Albert both vocally and dramatically

    • As Albert, tenor Miles Mykkanen displayed a lovely lyric voice with an appealing honeyed sweetness in the timbre, which he employed with intelligence and humor

      • Opera News
  • Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov

    Metropolitan Opera, New York
    Sep 2021
    • And this was a cast of sonorous, articulate singing talkers […] The mezzo-soprano Tichina Vaughn, as a piquant inn hostess, and the tenor Miles Mykkanen, as the plangent Holy Fool who haunts Boris, are both excellent.

    • The character of the Holy Fool, hauntingly sung and acted here by Miles Mykkanen, clearly represents Boris’ conscience, and Wadsworth fascinatingly has him confronting the Tsar-to-be on an empty stage before a note of music is played. Boris recoils from the Fool immediately and takes refuge in the monastery. The Fool appears often – twirling madly when not singing – a constant reminder of Boris’ guilt

    • Spinning like a top and scattering balletic anguish […] the fine American tenor Miles Mykkanen gave it his all and sang very beautifully

      • Opera News
      • 30 September 2021