Elena Okolysheva

Biography

In 1990, she completed her training at the Moscow State Conservatoire and went on to do post-graduate studies there (Elena Obraztsova’s class). In 1991, she made her debut at the Landes Theatre, Salzburg, as Emilia in Otello. In the same year she won the Min-On Competition in Tokyo, and later on the Bellini Competition in Italy.
In 1991, she was accepted as a probationer at the Bolshoi Theatre, being promoted to soloist in 1992.

Repertoire

Her Bolshoi Theatre repertoire includes the following roles:
Dunyasha, Petrovna (Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride)
Innkeeper, Fyodor (Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov)
Laura (Dargomyzhsky’s The Stone Guest)
Olga (Eugene Onegin)
Flora, Annina (La Traviata)
Siebel (Faust)
Polina (The Queen of Spades)
Ines (Il Trovatore)
Alice (Lucia di Lammermoor)
Smeraldina, Nicoletta (Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges)
Amaranta (Paisiello’s La Molinara)
Curra, Preziosilla (La Forza del Destino)
Female street vendor (Desyatnikov’s The Children of Rosenthal)
Laura (Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta)
The Grandmother (Banevich’s The Story of Kai and Gerda)

Also in repertoire:
Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana)
Eboli (Don Carlo)
Ulrica (Un Ballo in Maschera)
Fenena (Nabucco)
Azucena (Il Trovatore)
the mezzo-soprano roles in Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Tchaikovsky’s Moskva and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky Cantatas, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus, J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass.

Tours

She has toured with the Bolshoi Theatre Opera Company in Austria, Italy, South Korea, China and Latvia.
Since 1997, she has had many engagements abroad. She has sang Olga (Eugene Onegin) at the Paris Opera-Comique and she has appeared in concert programmes in Amsterdam, Dusseldorf , Antwerp and Brussels. In 1999, she appeared frequently in the States, including performances of Amneris (Aida) in the cities of Palm Desert, Kalamaza, New Orleans, Atlanta. She has toured with oratorio and chamber music programmes in the cities of Spain. In the Madrid Auditorium Concert Hall, she sang the part of The Girl (Alexander Nevsky). In 2001, she sang Marina Mnishek (Boris Godunov) in Seoul. In 2004, in the West Palm Beach Concert Hall, she took part in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Moskva Cantata, and she sang Flora (La Traviata) in the cities of Athens, Atlanta, Stony Brook, Winstom Salem. In 2005, she sang Polina (The Queen of Spades) at the San Carlo Opera House in Naples (conductor Jerzy Semkow, director Francesca Zambello). She appeared in solo concerts and sang Marta (Iolanta) in Tokyo and Nagano. In 2006, she took part in concert programmes on the stage of the ancient Greco-Roman theatre in Aspendos (Turkey). In 2007, she appeared at David Oistrakh Festival in Parnu (Estonia).

Discography

Rimsky-Korsakov’s oratorio From Homer, conductor Evgeny Svetlanov, 1992
Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night — Mayor’s sister-in-law, conductor Andrei Chistyakov, 1994
Le Nozze di Figaro — Cherubino, conductor Oleg Zverev, 1994
Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride — Dunyasha, conductor Andrei Chistyakov, 1996
Tchaikovsky’s music for Alexander Ostrovsky’s drama The Snow Maiden — Lehl, conductor Igor Golovchin, 1996
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Vera Sheloga — title role, conductor Igor Golovchin, 1997
Arias by Russian and Foreign Composers, conductor Nikolai Alexeyev, 1999
M. Fyodorova’s rock-opera I Will Wait for You — The Mother, 1999
Tchaikovsky’s Romances, I. Solovyova (piano), 2004.