Herman and Countess from St Petersburg

On 19 April, we will hear Mikhail Vekua from the Mariinsky Theatre and Olesya Petrova from the Mikhailovsky Theatre at the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus for the first time. The artists will appear in the roles of Herman and the Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades.

Mikhail Vekua was born in Ochamchira (Abkhazia). He graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in 2004 and completed a postgraduate study there in 2007 (class of Professor Alexei Martynov). From 2002 to 2011 he was a soloist with the Moscow Academic Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. The tenor made his Mariinsky Theatre debut in 2012 as Loge in Das Rheingold. In 2013 he joined the Mariinsky Opera Company. His repertoire at the Mariinsky Theatre includes: Alfredo Germont in La traviata, Doctor Faust in Faust, Don José in Carmen, Samson in Samson et Dalila, Radamès in Aida, etc. Mikhail has appeared as Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre conducted by Kent Nagano at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (2010), as Loge in Das Rheingold at the Edinburgh Festival and Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Mariinsky Opera tours) and as Tristan in Tristan und Isolde at the Mariinsky Concert Hall (2017). In 2013, he participated in the american premiere of Taneyev’s Oresteia at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College (New York). Vekua performed at the Grand and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, the Grand and Small Halls of the St Petersburg Shostakovich Philharmonic and the Armorial Hall of the State Hermitage. As a guest soloist he appeared at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and Metropolitan Opera.

On 19 April, we will hear the winner of prestigious international competitions, the finalist of the BBC Singer of the World Olesya Petrova in the role of the Countess. Olesya Petrova graduated from the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in 2008 (class of Irina Bogacheva). She has been a soloist with the St Petersburg Conservatoire Opera Theatre since 2007. There she has performed Marfa in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, Konchakovna in Borodin’s Prince Igor, Lel in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snow Maiden, Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Polina and the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Ioanna in Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans, the title part in Bizet’s Carmen, Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Ulrica in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. The audiences of such world-famous venues as the Metropolitan Opera, Zurich and Hamburg Operas, Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, Teatro Real de Madrid, Liceu Opera Barcelona, Arena di Verona Festival, Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky Theatres were delighted by Petrova's voice. The Belarusian audience also applauded the singer: together with our opera soloist Maria Galkina she performed at the Chamber Hall of the Bolshoi Theatre with a concert of Russian vocal music. At the concert hall “Verhni Gorod” (again together with Galkina) she performed famous arias from no less famous operas. And now Olesya Petrova will appear on the main stage of the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus for the first time.