• Artistes of the Opera Company
• Administration of the Opera Company
• Accompanists
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• History of the Opera Company

From the 1960s to the 1980s the aforementioned singers became acclaimed masters of their art, having seized the baton from those soloists who had joined the company in the 1930s. The new generation learnt from the “people of the 50s”. It was at this time that the theatre was joined by performers who later starred not only on the Russian stage but on the international music scene as well. These included, first and foremost, the tenor Vladimir Atlantov (1963) and the baritone Sergei Leiferkus (1978). They were the first Soviet singers of the post-war generation to be able to demonstrate abroad that the Russian performing style beautifully followed the international laws of bel canto. Their baton was later taken up by the talented Vladimir Chernov.

In 1964 the theatre signed up its future prima donna Irina Bogacheva. After training in Italy, the singer immediately occupied a leading position as a mezzo-soprano, performing myriad roles in the classical and contemporary repertoires. She was acclaimed as one of the greatest performers of the role of Carmen.

The bass Nikolai Okhotnikov and the tenor Konstantin Pluzhnikov made their debuts at the theatre in 1971. Brilliantly trained and with their beautiful and strong voices, they very soon joined the theatre’s front ranks of singers.

From 1987 to 1997 Bulat Minzhilkiev worked with the Mariinsky Opera Company. He had a rare voice that was powerful and fantastically beautiful. Minzhilkiev was not just a lead performer of the bass repertoire but, thanks to his spiritual qualities, the darling of the entire company as well. He performed lead roles in the operas Aida, Boris Godunov, Don Carlo, Katerina Ismailova, Faust and Khovanshchina among others.

Today, the Mariinsky Opera Company is a natural blend of experience, traditions and youthful energy. Its soloists perform not just on their home stage but at leading opera houses throughout the world. Once again, following a lengthy interruption, the theatre is playing host to world premieres of productions of operas by contemporary composers, among them Rodion Shchedrin’s The Enchanted Wanderer, Alexander Smelkov’s The Brothers Karamazov and Nikolai Karetnikov’s The Mystery of the Apostle Paul. In the 1990s and at the start of this century works by Richard Wagner returned to the repertoire, among them his Der Ring des Nibelungen, performed – as are other operatic works – in the original language. European classics are represented by operas by Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz, Donizetti, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Bizet, Rossini, Richard Strauss, Janáček, Bartók, Britten and other composers. In line with tradition, the repertoire is based on operas by Russian composers including Glinka, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev.