Svetlana Shilova

Mezzo-soprano Svetlana Shilova, who comes from Zaporizhia in Ukraine, studied voice with Konstantin Pluzhnikov at the Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St. Petersburg. After graduating in 1997, she first performed at the St. Petersburg Chamber Opera; in the following season she was engaged as part of the ensemble of the Rimsky-Korsakov Opera. There she performed the great mezzo roles in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame, in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, and in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. After making her debut at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in 2002, she expanded her repertoire to include the roles of Marfa in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, the Nurse in Boris Godunov, and Sonyetka in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. As Dido in Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz, Svetlana Shilova has moreover dedicated herself to French opera; in the concert hall she has performed such works as the Verdi and Mozart Requiems, Handel’s Messiah, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky.

July 2010