Ekaterina Gubanova is acknowledged as one of the leading mezzos of our days. Born in Moscow she first studied piano before being trained as an opera singer at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and as a member of the Young Artists Program at the Royal Opera House in London.
Since then, she regularly guests at the major opera houses and festivals worldwide, such as the Metropolitan Opera New York, La Scala in Milano, the Rome Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, the Berlin State Opera the Lyric Opera Chicago, the Teatro Real Madrid, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre, the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, as well as the Bayreuth festival.
In the 2023/24 season, Ekaterina Gubanova will perform several times in the USA and will take on the role of Venus (Tannhäuser) at the Met. A little later she sings Verdi’s Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann and in the summer of 2024 Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (musical director: Jaap van Zweden). Another highlight is her debut as Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana) in Athens, a role she will also sing at the Hamburg State Opera. Further engagements will take her back to the Berlin State Opera, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Paris Opera and the Bayreuth Festival, which has now been an integral part of her calendar for several years.
A highlight of the 2022/ 23 season was her acclaimed debut as Kundy, conducted by Philippe Jordan at the Vienna State Opera. She also appeared at the Met in New York (Medea, Norma), at the Royal Opera House in London (Tannhäuser) and at the Rome Opera, where she took on the role of Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmelites. The season ended at the Bayreuth Festival, where Ekaterina Gubanova performed Venus and Kundry.
One of her most important roles is Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde), which she first sang with outstanding success at the Opéra National de Paris in 2005. She also became known for her interpretation of Fricka in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, which she performed with Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Berlin and with Kirill Petrenko at the Teatro alla Scala and the Bayerische Staatsoper. A production conducted by Valery Gergiev was recorded for the Mariinsky label. Her wide operatic repertoire also includes roles such as Eboli, Amneris, Adalgisa, Giovanna Seymour, Marina Mniszech, Lyubasha, Marguerite (Damnation du Faust), Ortrud and Foreign Princess (Rusalka), to name but a few.
Ekaterina Gubanova is also a sought-after concert singer. Not only on the opera stage but also in concert, she works regularly with renowned orchestras and conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Semion Bychkov, Sir Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, Myung-Whun Chung and Kent Nagano. The artist is fequently engaged for Verdi’s Messa da requiem, which she has sung under the baton of Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev and Riccardo Chailly, among others. Her concert repertoire also includes works such as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the Rückert Lieder, his symphonies no. 2 and no. 3, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and works by French and Russian composers.
August 2023
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
