The Academy of Young Singers
Artistic director of the Academy – Larisa Gergieva
On the initiative of Valery Gergiev, the Academy of Young Singers was founded at the heart of the Mariinsky Theatre in 1998. Under the guidance of its astute and attentive Artistic Director Larisa Gergiev, it has become an integral part of the theatre.
Larisa Gergieva is a renowned figure in music, being a concert accompanist and tutor of world standing, General Director of the International Rimsky-Korsakov Competition, jury member of numerous prestigious international opera singers´ competitions and Artistic Director of the International Summer Academy in Mikkeli. The hopes of the experienced teachers were justified from literally the very first years of the Academy´s work.
Each year the Academy admits new young singers who come from all parts of Russia and from Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Bulgaria, Korea, Japan, Sweden, the UK, Poland and the USA. The Academy provides its students with unique training conditions – by studying with brilliant teachers they assimilate vocal technique, form a sense of style and learn foreign languages and the history of the Mariinsky Theatre and world opera. Moreover, the academicians have the wonderful opportunity to take part in master classes of such famous singers as Plácido Domingo, Renata Scotto, Elena Obraztsova, Ileana Cotrubas, Vladimir Atlantov, Tom Krause and Dennis O´Neal as well as working with renowned coaches including Maria Cleva (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) and Gustav Dzhupshobakka.
Academy soloists are actively involved in Mariinsky Theatre productions, performing not just minor roles on the hallowed stage, but major ones too. In recent years some of the Mariinsky Theatre´s most successful productions have been those engaging exclusively singers from the Academy and created under the direction of Larisa Gergieva – Rossini´s Il viaggio a Reims (winner of the Golden Mask for best musical production, best directing and best female role), Prokofiev´s The Love for Three Oranges and Mozart´s Die Zauberflöte.
It is impossible to imagine musical life in St Petersburg without concerts of vocal music by soloists of the Mariinsky Academy of Young Singers. Their performances at the Mariinsky Theatre, the Large and Small Halls of the Philharmonic, the Yusupov Palace, the Chaliapin Apartment Museum, the Hermitage Theatre and other venues have long since become a noble tradition. Concert playbills listing the names of the Academy´s soloists can be seen throughout Russia, the CIS and abroad. Their supreme professionalism, artistry and individual performing style have been met with delight from music-lovers in Moscow and Smolensk, Yaroslavl and Arkhangelsk, Ulyanovsk and Vladikavkaz, Tallinn and Elista: Many of the academicians´ concerts take place abroad. In recent years the map of the Academy´s soloists´ concerts has taken in dozens of towns and cities in countries including the UK, the USA, Italy, France, Finland, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Belgium, Canada and Japan. Soloists of the Academy – several-times recipients of Grand-Prix, awards and diplomas at the most prestigious international competitions – are actively involved in many festivals.
