Ekaterina Lekhina

Biography

Ekaterina Lekhina was born in Samara, Russia, where she studied choral conducting. She continued her education in Moscow at the Academy of Choral Art, where she obtained a postgraduate master’s degree in opera singing (with professor S.Nesterenko).

Her first engagement was in 2006 with the Vienna Volksoper where she sang the role of Madame Herz in Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor and also the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte. With this role she appeared also in the Theater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich, Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper in Berlin, Staatsoper Hanover and Treviso (Italy).

Her first Olympia (Les contes d’Hoffmann) was at the summer opera festival in Klosterneuburg, Austria in 2006, followed by engagements for the same role in Tel Aviv (2007), Vienna Volksoper (2007) and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London (2008).

In May 2008 she sang the role of Musetta (La Boheme) at the Teatro Municipal, Santiago de Chile and in the summer 2008 she made her debut with the title role in Mozart’s Zaide at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Also in 2008 she gave a solo recital at St. John’s Smith Square, London as part of the Rosenblatt recital series.

In October 2008 Ekaterina Lekhina sang the role of Briggita in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in a concert performance with London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski and in January 2009 she participated in a concert with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia at the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, Moscow.

Other engagements have included The Queen of the Night at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, Munich Staatsoper, Hong Kong and Beijing, Olympia at the Volksoper and in Monte-Carlo where she also sang Gilda (Rigoletto). Under the baton of Kent Nagano, she covered the role of Amina and sang Lisa in La Sonnambula at the Bel Canto Festival in Knowlton, Canada. She took part in a concert including excerpts from I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Ariadne auf Naxos (Zerbinetta’s aria) at the Teatro Municipal, Santiago de Chile and sang the title role in L’arbore di Diana by Martin y Soler at the Teatro Real, Madrid.

She has made a CD recording of the opera L’amour de loin by Kaija Saariaho (the role of Clemence) for Harmonia Mundi under the baton of Kent Nagano which won the prestigious ’Diapason d’Or’ Prize in France and a Grammy Award in the USA.

Ekaterina Lekhina has worked with conductors such as Leopold Hager, Alfred Eschwé, David Stahl, Frédéric Chaslin, Louis Langrée and Antonio Pappano among others.

Ekaterina Lekhina is a First-prize winner of All-Russia competition (St. Petersburg, 2005) and Placido Domingo Operalia (Paris, 2007).

In 2012 she made her debut at the Bolshoi Theatre, singing the role of the Queen of the Night. In 2013 she sang the Tsaritsa of Shemakha (The Golden Cockerel) and Amina (La sonnambula).