Today, I have a completely different way of doing the same role. The task itself has not changed at all, but now I have different means at my disposal. I can do almost anything with that role, as with others. In my case it has not yet begun. Sitting on a park bench, Salminen spits over his left shoulder three times, the Finnish equivalent of touching wood.
Life adds a variety of colours and edges to it.
The basic colour in my voice has grown darker over the years, but technique still allows me to find more melodious, lighter tones in some or other compartment of my memory. The freshness of youth does not inevitably disappear as long as the mindset remains boyish. I feel I have remained a little boy at heart - and that is positive in many ways. One of the things that helps me in this is making lighter music, because in it one has to keep a finger on the pulse of the times. Opera work is largely old classical music and listening to the beat of today is a good counterweight.