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P R O F I L E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
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February 26, 2016
DMITRI
HVOROSTOVSKY
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Title role/
Eugene Onegin
(2007-08); Renato/
Un
ballo in maschera
(2002-
03); Germont/
La traviata
(1998-99, 1993-94);
Valentin/
Faust
(1995-96).
The internationally acclaimed Russian baritone
was born and studied in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia.
In 1989, he won the prestigious BBC Cardiff
Singer of the World Competition. From the
start, audiences were bowled over by his
cultivated voice, innate sense of musical line,
and natural legato. After his Western operatic
debut at the Opéra de Nice as Prince Yeletsky/
Tchaikovsky’s
The Queen of Spades,
his career
exploded to take in regular engagements at the
world’s major opera houses and appearances
at renowned international festivals. He made
his American operatic debut at Lyric in
1993-94 in
La traviata
. Hvorostovsky rapidly
became a favorite at major houses worldwide,
including the Royal Opera House-Covent
Garden, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the
Opéra National de Paris, the Bavarian State
Opera in Munich, the Salzburg Festival, La
Scala in Milan, and the Vienna State Opera.
Roles for which the baritone is most noted
include Count di Luna/
Il trovatore
, Posa/
Don
Carlo
, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Renato/
Un ballo in maschera
, Prince Yeletsky, and
Eugene Onegin.
A celebrated recitalist in demand
worldwide – from the Far East to the Middle
East, from Australia to South America –
Hvorostovsky has appeared at such venues
as Wigmore Hall, London; Queen’s Hall,
Edinburgh; Carnegie Hall; La Scala; the
Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow; the
Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona; Tokyo’s
Suntory Hall; and the Musikverein in Vienna.
The singer performs in concert with top
orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic
and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Among
the renowned conductors with whom he has
regularly collaborated are the late Claudio
Abbado, Valéry Gergiev, Bernard Haitink,
James Levine, the late Lorin Maazel, Zubin
Mehta, and Yuri Termikanov.
Hvorostovsky retains a strong musical
and personal contact with Russia. He became
the first opera singer to give a solo concert
with orchestra and chorus on Red Square in
Moscow; this concert was televised in more
than 25 countries. The baritone has gone on
to sing a number of prestigious concerts in
Moscow as a part of his own special series,
“Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Friends.” He has
invited such celebrated artists as sopranos
Renée Fleming, Barbara Frittoli, Sumi Jo, and
Sondra Radvanovsky, tenors Jonas Kaufmann
and Marcello Giordani, and bass Ildar
Abdrazakov. In 2005 and 2015 Hvorostovsky
undertook historic tours throughout the cities
of Russia at the invitation of President Putin,
singing to crowds of hundreds of thousands
of people to commemorate the soldiers of
the Second World War. He has established
an important collaboration with the Russian
popular composer Igor Krutoi, with very
successful concerts in Moscow, St Petersburg,
Kiev, and New York.
The baritone’s extensive discography
spans recitals and complete operas. He has also
starred in
Don Giovanni Unmasked,
an award-
winning film (by Rhombus Media) based on
the Mozart opera
,
tackling the roles of both
Don Giovanni and Leporello
.
Recent CD
recordings include “Wait for Me” (Russian
war songs with orchestra, conducted by
Constantine Orbelian) and
Simon Boccanegra
(with Barbara Frittoli, Ildar Abdrazakov, and
Stefano Secco, also with Orbelian conducting),
both of which have been met with much
critical acclaim. For a complete discography,
please visit his website, hvorostovsky.com.
Hvorostovsky returned triumphantly to
the Metropolitan Opera earlier this season
in
Il trovatore
. Other highlights will include
Otello
at the Salzburg Easter Festival, both
Un
ballo in maschera
and
Simon Boccanegra
at the
Vienna State Opera, and concert and recital
appearances in Budapest, Graz, Vienna, Linz,
and Zagreb.
IVARI ILJA
Born in Tallinn, Estonia,
the pianist studied at the
Tallinn State Conservatory
with Professor Laine Mets
and at the Moscow Tchai-
kovsky Conservatoire with
Professor Vera Gornosta-
yeva and Professor Sergey
Dorensky.
Ilja is an internationally recognized
accompanist and ensemble musician. His
collaborations with renowned singers Dmitri
Hvorostovsky, the late Irina Arkhipova, Maria
Guleghina, and Elena Zaremba have been
particularly successful and acclaimed. Together
they have performed many of the great concert
stages of the world, including Carnegie Hall,
Alice Tully Hall, and Avery Fisher Hall in
New York, as well as the Kennedy Center in
Washington, Davies Symphony Hall in San
Francisco, Milan’s La Scala, London’s Queen
Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall, Moscow’s
Bolshoi Theatre, the great halls of the St.
Petersburg Philharmonic and the Moscow
Conservatory, the Hamburg State Opera,
the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Suntory Hall in
Tokyo, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Salzburg’s
Mozarteum.
Ilja has also presented solo recitals in
France, United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia,
Russia, Sweden, and Finland. He has
performed as a soloist with several symphony
orchestras such as Estonian National
Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony
Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg Symphony
Orchestra, among others.
The pianist’s repertoire mostly consists
of romantic music, primarily the works of
Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Robert
Schumann, but also Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten
and others.
Since 2003 Ilja has repeatedly toured with
Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the U.S., Europe,
Hong-Kong, Japan, and elsewhere.
PAVEL ANTONOV