Mikhail Tatarnikov was born in Leningrad in 1978. Graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory (class of Alexander Polishchuk).
He made his debut at the Mariinsky Theatre in 2006 with the ballet Metaphysics set to the music of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony. In 2007 he also made his debut there as an opera conductor (Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges). At the Mariinsky Theatre he has subsequently conducted more than forty titles.
He was Valery Gergiev’s assistant throughout a run of Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Metropolitan Opera. Has been a production conductor at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo (Prokofiev’s The Gambler), the San Francisco Opera (Věc Makropulos by Janáček) and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona (The Demon by Rubinstein).
Mikhail Tatarnikov collaborates with the Teatro alla Scala, the Opéra de Paris, the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, the Komische Oper in Berlin, Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Teatr Wielki – Opera Narodowa in Warsaw, Latvian National Opera and Ballet and the Bergen National Opera among other companies. Has appeared with orchestras in Turin, Jena, Oslo, Dresden, Rotterdam, Gävle (Sweden), Stresa (Italy), Tokyo, Moscow, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk. Has collaborated with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Anna Netrebko, Yusif Eyvazov, Robetro Alagna, Kristine Opolais, Aida Garifullina, Ildar Abdrazakov, Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Vadim Repin, Peter Donohoe and Neil Shicoff among other performers.
From 2012 to 2018 he was Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Mikhailovsky Theatre. In 2013 he conducted the Russian premiere of Britten’s opera Billy Budd, staged by Willy Decker at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, while in December 2013 and January 2014 he conducted the world premiere of Ratmansky’s ballet Serata Ratmansky at the Teatro alla Scala. In August 2020 he appeared at the centenary Salzburg Festival.
In 2013 he received the Golden Sofit award “For theatrical expressiveness in decisions as a conductor”; in 2016 he received the Tchaikovsky memorial dedication medal and diploma “For a contribution to the development of music in Russia”.
Information for September 2020