Mykhailo Malafii as Lensky

The stage of the Belarusian Bolshoi is waiting for the young tenor Mykhailo Malafii again. The artist of the Lviv Opera comes to us not for the first time. And every time he receives the tremendous ovation and… steals the hearts of ladies. On 30 November he will appear on the Belarusian stage for the second time in one of the most beautiful opera of Pyotr Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin in the role of Vladimir Lensky.

‘The role of Lensky like a balsam for lyric-dramatic tenor’, the guest artist of the Bolshoi theatre of Belarus Mykhailo Malafii said. ‘And Tchaikovsky's music is a medicine for the voice.The character is young poet in love. He is close to me, because I’m a romantic. I hope I can find the key to the heart of the audience, because the Belarusian audience is special. When my teachers or colleagues tell me how warmly they welcomed in the Metropolitan Opera or Teatro alla Scala, I think that such warm reception is always waiting for me in Minsk! Eugene Onegin is the first Russian Opera in my repertoire. I’m pleased that my debut took place on your stage. Though… I think that Minsk is my second home. When people ask me where I work, I mention the Lviv Opera first and then the Bolshoi theatre of Belarus.'

Minsk really became a kind of a launching pad for Mykhailo for his undoubtedly successful professional career. Malafii has already performed in many theaters around the world. Among them: Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Italy, France, Austria (in Linz the Ukrainian tenor won the International Competition of singers of the Italian Opera Competizione dell'Opera-2017). And anyway Minsk was at the beginning. On the stage of our Bolshoi Theatre Malafii won first and audience prizes of the 2nd Minsk International Christmas Singing Competition.

The Belarusian audience was captivated by the beautiful deep voice and acting abilities of the Ukrainian tenor. And music critics completely agreed with the audience. They called Mykhailo Malafii the “Golden voice”. ‘The major victories and challenges of the young tenor are yet to come’, reviewers of the project classicalmusicnews.ru admitted. ‘But now it is necessary to note the emotional content and expressiveness of timbre. Also we can add his absolute temperament, youthful enthusiasm and expressive stage appearance.’

We could only add that the conductor will be Maestro Andrey Ivanov and the performance will feature Dzianis Yantsevich as Eugene Onegin (for the young baritone it will be the first performance), Anastasia Moskvina as Tatiana, Oksana Volkova as Olga, Oleg Melnikov as Prince Gremin, Svetlana Marusevich as Larina.