She stopped talking, looked away, then apologised and began to sob. I have so much adrenaline, I cry so easily,' she said. In the frozen North, they call Mattila the Finnish Venus. On New Year's Eve in 1999, she appeared on television during a global relay to sing Sibelius's Luonnotar, an orchestral song about earth's genesis. I used to be so frustrated, so annoyed,' she said.
Opera can be so fake.
But at last I feel I am overcoming my limits, escaping from the strict, old-fashioned country upbringing I had. I made my mistakes. Now I am beginning to realise what I might be capable of, if I have great directors and conductors to challenge me and help me. She beamed, aware that her good luck is also ours. It is almost a religion.