Soprano Irina Rubtsova took voice instruction from Irina Arkhipova at the State Conservatory of her native Moscow. In 1993 she joined the ensemble of the Bolshoi Theater, making her debut there as Zemfira in Rachmaninoff’s Aleko. She has since performed several of the important roles for her voice type there, including Verdi’s Aida, Abigaille, Lady Macbeth, and Amelia; Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame; Fata Morgana in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges; and Yaroslavna in Borodin’s Prince Igor. Irina Rubtsova has made stage appearances at San Francisco Opera (Eugene Onegin) and at Paris National Opera, where she participated in new productions of Prokofiev’s War and Peace and of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina. She has additionally performed the title role of Puccini’s Tosca in Denmark, has sung Aida in Cyprus, and has appeared in recital in Japan.
July 2010