Boris Stepanov

Boris Stepanov graduated from the Glinka Choral School (Academic Chorus Conducting Department) in 2005 and from the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire (Conducting Department) in 2010. He also underwent traineeship at La Scala in 2015.

In 2005–2015 he was a soloist of the Smolny Cathedral Chamber Choir. In 2006, he participated in the production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Conservatoire Theatre and at the Hermitage Theatre and in the concert Opera World. Benjamin Britten at the St Petersburg Academic Capella. In 2007, he performed the tenor part in Desyatnikov’s ballet Wie der alte Leiermann... at the Mariinsky Theatre and Ivan in the Hamburg première of Mattheson’s Boris Godunov (the production was also staged at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St Petersburg and at the New Opera Theatre in Moscow in 2007). As a guest soloist, he performs with the St Petersburg and Riga Philharmonic Societies. Since 2017, he has been a guest soloist with the Bolshoi Theatre, where he performs Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, and the Italian Singer in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. In 2019, BIS Records released Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov performed by the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kent Nagano featuring Boris Stepanov as the Simpleton, Misail and the Boyar. Boris Stepanov regularly performs abroad and in various Russian cities. His recent performances include the Simpleton in Geneva, Malcolm in Verdi’s Macbeth in Toulouse, Almaviva at the Helicon Theatre in Moscow, Zinovy Borisovich in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Chile National Opera. He has performed with Vassily Sinaisky, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Altschuler, Paolo Arrivabeni, Yuri Bashmet, Vladimir Begletsov, Alexander Vedernikov, Stanislav Gorkovenko, Fabio Mastrangelo, Kent Nagano, Konstantin Orbelian, Alexander Rudin, Tugan Sokhiev, Suzuki Masaaki, Vladimir Jurowski, Dmitri Jurowski, Alexander Titov, Leo Krämer, Saulius Sondeckis, Nikolay Alexeyev, Valentin Nesterov, Māris Sirmais, Kazuki Yamada, and other renowned conductors.

Here he also participated in the concert performances of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snow Maiden (Tsar Berendey) under the baton of Dmitri Jurowski, Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (Almaviva) under the baton of Frédéric Chaslin, and Rachmaninoff’s Aleko (the Young Gypsy) in the concert dedicated to the anniversary of Sergei Leiferkus and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Ernesto) under the baton of Mikhail Tatarnikov.

The singer’s répertoire also includes the title roles in Rameau’s Pigmalion, Lully’s Atys and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Phronimos in Bortniansky’s Alcide as well as vocal parts in Stravinsky’s Les noces and sacred compositions by Bach, Schütz, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Schumann, Haydn, Mendelsohn, Orff, Britten and Lloyd Webber.

In 2015–2023, Boris Stepanov was a soloist of the Mikhailovsky Opera. At the Mikhailovsky Theatre, he performed tenor parts in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Since 2023, he has been a guest soloist of the Mikhailovsky Theatre.