Ekaterina Semenchuk

Екатерина Семенчук

Opera singer, mezzo-soprano

Biography

Born in Minsk, she graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 2000, while still a student, she made her debut on the Mariinsky Theater stage in several roles at once: Lel in 'The Snow Maiden', Sonya in 'War and Peace', Polina and Milovzor in 'The Queen of Spades', and Nicklausse in 'The Tales of Hoffmann'. That same year, she debuted at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in 'War and Peace'.

A principal soloist of the Mariinsky Theater, she has performed on stages and concert venues such as the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, Rome Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Salzburg Festival, Arena di Verona, and others. Her repertoire includes major mezzo-soprano roles in 19th-century Italian and French opera: Carmen, Amneris ('Aida'), Eboli ('Don Carlos'), Azucena ('Il trovatore'), Preziosilla ('La forza del destino'), Laura ('La Gioconda'), Didon ('Les Troyens'), Marguerite ('La Damnation de Faust'), Ascanio ('Benvenuto Cellini'), Charlotte ('Werther'), Dalila ('Samson et Dalila'), as well as Federica ('Luisa Miller'), Jane Seymour ('Anna Bolena'), Fricka ('Das Rheingold' and 'Die Walküre'), and roles from the Russian repertoire.

In 2005, she performed at the wedding ceremony of Prince Charles of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, where she sang Grechaninov's 'Credo'.

First prize winner of the International Competition for Young Opera Singers in St. Petersburg (2000), finalist of the BBC 'Singer of the World' competition in 2001, Honored Artist of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania.