Yevgeny Nikitin

Bass-baritone

• Honoured Artist of Russia
• Prize-winner at the International Pechkovsky Young Opera Singers' Competition (1996, St Petersburg)
• Prize-winner at the International Rimsky-Korsakov Young Opera Singers' Competition (1998, St Petersburg)
• Prize-winner at the International Tchaikovsky Young Opera Singers' Competition (1998, Moscow)
• Recipient of the Golden Sofit, St Petersburg's most prestigious theatre prize, for the role of Grigory Gryaznoi in the opera The Tsar's Bride ("Best role in musical theatre", 2005)

Yevgeny Nikitin graduated from the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in 1997 (class of Bulat Minzhilkiev). While still a student, he was invited to join the Mariinsky Theatre and has since performed frequently, taking part in the theatre's most significant productions.

Repertoire a t the Mariinsky Theatre includes:
Ruslan (Ruslan a nd Lyudmila)
Boris Godunov, Shchelkalov, Rangoni (Boris Godunov)
Shaklovity (Khovanshchina)
Prince Igor, Vladimir Yaroslavich (Prince Igor)
Demon (The Demon)
Eugene Onegin (Eugene Onegin)
Tomsky (The Queen of Spades)
Ebn-Hakia (Iolanta)
Aleko (Aleko)
Gryaznoi (The Tsar's Bride)
Gusliar (The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh a nd the Maiden Fevronia)
Creonte, Narrator (Oedipus Rex)
Chief of Police (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk)
Banco (Macbeth)
Baron Duphol (La traviata in concert)
Marchese di Calatrava (La forza del destino)
Philip II (Don Carlo)
Lodovico (Otello)
Colline (La bohème)
High Priest of Dagon (Samson et Dalila)
Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro)
Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni)
Dutchman (Der Fliegende Holländer)
Heinrich der Vogel (Lohengrin)
Wotan (Das Rheingold a nd Siegfried)
Fasolt (Das Rheingold)
Gunther (Götterdämmerung)
Amfortas (Parsifal)
Jokanaan (Salome)
Orest (Elektra)

Has performed with the Mariinsky Opera Company at several international festivals in Salzburg, Mikkeli and St Petersburg. Has toured with the Mariinsky Theatre to Italy, Austria, Finland, the USA, Israel, Turkey, the UK, Germany and France.
Recordings include Boris Godunov (1997, conducted by Valery Gergiev) and Semyon Kotko (2000, conducted by Valery Gergiev) with Philips Classics.

Wagnerian roles occupy a special position in Yevgeny Nikitin's repertoire. As a Wagnerian singer, he has received high praise from Russian a nd western music critics. In 2008 he performed as Klingsor (Parsifal) at the Opéra Bastille and as the Dutchman a t Baden-Baden's Festspielhaus.
Yevgeny Nikitin is a guest soloist at the Metropolitan Opera, where he has a ppeared as Colline (La bohème), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) a nd the Prisoner (Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero).
Togther with the Mariinsky Opera Company, Yevgeny Nikitin has a ppeared at international festivals in Salzburg, Mikkeli and St Petersburg. In 2008 he performed Musorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival (Germany).
Yevgeny Nikitin frequently tours to Italy, Austria, Finland, the USA, Israel, Turkey, the UK, Germany and France.
Yevgeny Nikitin and Philips Classics have produced recordings of the operas Boris Godunov (1997, conducted by Valery Gergiev) and Semyon Kotko (2000, conducted by Valery Gergiev).

...Listening to Nikitin’s powerful yet intense voice, admiring his perfect and free control of all the sound ranges and loving his heroic image that is no less bewitching than his voice, it is impossible not to think of Chaliapin. Nikitin conveys a sense of power combined with the broad scale of veiled compassion felt by the great performer towards his character.

MatthewParis.com


Nikitin proved the most interesting singer, bringing warmth and surprising power to the grueling third act of Siegfried.

New York Times


Evgeny Nikitin sang with the balance of power and compassion necessary to turn Friar Laurence, a relatively minor character in the Shakespeare play, into a wise, peacemaking figure who reconciles the Capulets and Montagues in the work’s final bars.

New York Times