Mikhail Petrenko

The Russian bass Mikhail Petrenko, who was born in 1975 in St. Petersburg, studied voice with Bulat Minzhilkiev at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory and had his first stage experiences as part of the Mariinsky Theater Opera Studio. In 2001 he was taken on as a permanent member of the ensemble. Petrenko earned a name by winning prizes at the Elena Obraztsova Young Opera Singers’ Competition and the Maria Callas New Verdi Voices Competition; he became known to the international public through numerous tours with the Mariinsky Theater under Valery Gergiev, including visits to the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Salzburg Festival. Petrenko has since become a regular guest artist at the world’s best-known opera houses, performing the great bass and bass-baritone roles by composers from Mozart to Wagner. He has performed Hunding and Hagen in the Ring cycle led by Simon Rattle in Aix-en-Provence and at Salzburg; he has also sung Hunding at the Metropolitan Opera and the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. Petrenko has appeared at the Salzburg Festival in the French repertoire as well (Benvenuto Cellini and Roméo et Juliette), and at the Opéra National de Paris he has sung bel canto works (I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Il barbiere di Siviglia). In addition Petrenko regularly performs the operas of Giuseppe Verdi and of course the great Russian roles as well, such as Pimen in Boris Godunov and Gremin in Eugene Onegin. As a concert singer, Petrenko collaborates with Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding, Vladimir Jurowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 22 August 2005 as Hunding in a performance of the first act of Wagner’s Die Walküre under Valery Gergiev.

May 2013