Nikolay Didenko

Biography

He completed his education at the V.V. Stasov Music School (violin class) and at the A.V. Sveshnikov Moscow Choral College. He then enrolledat the Academy of Choral Art, from which he graduated in conducting and solo singing (teacher — Dmitri Vdovin). From 2002-2003 he was leading soloist at Moscow’s Novaya Opera Company. From 2003-2005 he was a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio (USA).

Since 2003 he has been making his debut at opera houses and concert halls in New York, Washington, Houston, Paris, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Copenhagen, Cologne, Warsaw, Salzburg, Moscow, among other places.

He has sung in the following, among other, operas: Mozart and Salieri, Rigoletto, Eugene Onegin, Tosca, Giulio Cesare, Madama Butterfly, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Turandot, Die Zauberflöte, Il Trovatore, Idomeneo, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Les Troyens, La Clemenza di Tito, Don Carlos, Un Ballo in maschera, La Bohème, La Sonnambula, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Aida, Norma, Il Turco in Italia, Falstaff, La Forza del destino, Simon Boccanegra, Don Giovanni, Boris Godunov, Marco Adamo’s Lysistrata (world première).

Concert repertoire includes: Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle and Stabat Mater, Shostakovich’s Anti-Formalist Rayok and Symphonies Nos. 13 and 14, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Mozart’s Requiem and masses, Dvořák’s Stabat mater, Verdi’s Requiem.

In 2013 he took part in the Bolshoi Theatre production of La sonnambula, singing the part of Count Rodolpho. In 2014 he sang the role of the Old Robber Woman in a new production of The Story of Kai and Gerda, In 2016, appeared in title role in Don Pasquale new production. In 2020 he took part in the premiere performances of Sadko singing the role of the Sea Tsar.

Collaborated with such conductors as Antonello Allemandi, Patrick Summers, Edoardo Müller, Nello Santi, Marco Armiliato, Vladimir Fedoseev, Vladimir Spivakov, Rudolf Barshai, Mikhail Pletnev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Among his recent operatic engagements: Clemens VII (Benvenuto Cellini) and Graf des Grieux (Manon) for Koln Opera House, Gremin (Eugene Onegin) at the Frankfurt Opera, as well as Daland in Der Fliegende Holländer (Malmö Opera) and Tsar Dodon in The Golden Cockerel (Dallas Opera).

Since 2005 he has been the artistic director of the White Steamer, singing rivers of Russia charitable program aimed at the creative development and rehabilitation of musically gifted children with disabilities, orphans, children from dysfunctional, single-parent, large and low-income families.