Leonid Zakhozhaev

Leonid Zakhozhaev has since 1995 ranked among the leading soloists of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre on whose stage he has created an extensive gallery of such principal parts as Siegfried, Tristan (Tristan und Isolde), Lohengrin, Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Cellini (Benvenuto Cellini), Faust, Lensky (Eugene Onegin), Boris (Káťa Kabanová), Parsifal, Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), and Dimitry (Boris Godunov). Outside his home turf, he has appeared among others in a production of Verdi’s Requiem under Valery Gergiev at the Savonlinna Festival in Finland, and subsequently in another production of the same work with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Leonid Zakhozhaev has sung in numerous opera houses in Europe, including the Vienna State Opera (as Herman in The Queen of Spades), at the Ravenna Festival (as Lohengrin), at Munich (as Vaudemont in Iolanthe), and at the Paris Opera (in Prokofiev’s War and Peace). He has not shied away from the Czech repertoire, having sung Boris and Števa in Janáček’s operas, Káťa Kabanová and Jenůfa, respectively, at the Israel Opera in Tel Aviv. Leonid Zakhozhaev made his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2002, in Prokofiev’s War and Peace, and in 2003 triumphed at Baltimore, as Sergey in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. In April 2003 he sang his first Siegfried at Mariinsky Theatre, under Gergiev’s baton, and in 2006 appeared as Siegfried, in Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, in a complete Ring production under Valery Gergiev’s direction at St Petersburg, at the Baden-Baden Festival, and at the Wagner Festival in Wroclaw. He was also cast as Siegfried in a production of the Canadian Opera in Toronto, and in 2007 made a phenomenally acclaimed debut as Wagner’s Tristan at Hannover. In June 2006, Leonid Zakhozhaev drew critical plaudits for his performance in concert productions of the operas The Stone Guest (Alexander Dargomyzhsky), and Mozart and Salieri (Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov), with the American Symphony Orchestra at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall. Also in the United States, he appeared as Siegfried in a production of the eponymous opera during a visit by the Mariinsky Theatre at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in California, in October 2006, and at the Metropolitan Opera Festival held at New York’s Lincoln Center in 2007 (both under Gergiev’s baton). In October 2007 he sang Dimitry (Boris Godunov) at Wroclaw, and Tristan at Hannover. He also sang Siegfried under the baton of Zubin Mehta at Valencia in 2008, and in July of the same year created Florestan (Fidelio) in the inaugural performance of the Festival in Las Palmas. In 2009 he made his debut at Florence, as Siegfried in Götterdämmerung.