Olga Peretyatko

A Russian soprano schooled in German technique who made her name in Italian opera houses, Olga Peretyatko is known as a versatile, charismatic performer, fast becoming one of classical music's leading stars. Born in Saint Petersburg, her father was a baritone singer with the choir at the Mariinsky Theatre, and from the age of three Peretyatko grew up in the wings, soaking up the music. When her parents divorced she moved to Lithuania with her mother, but returned to the Mariinsky at the age of 15 and started out conducting youth choirs because she was too young to study solo singing. It gave her a foundation of musical theory and technique, and at 22 she moved to Berlin to study at the Hanns Eisler-Hochschule fur Musik, where she cut her teeth performing in hospitals and retirement homes, before later starting her career at the Hamburg State Opera. Her time in Germany gave her a great knowledge of Handel and Bach, but she learned more about Rossini and Verdi when she joined a young singer's programme at the Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro, Italy, and she came to wider attention in 2007 when she placed second in the prestigious Operalia, World Opera Competition. Her leading role in Stravinsky's 'Rossignol' directed by Robert Lepage in Toronto in 2009 was another breakthrough moment, and she received great plaudits for her performance of Gilda in Verdi's 'Rigoletto' in Venice, before releasing her first album 'La Bellezza del Canto' for Sony Classics in 2011. Her second album 'Arabesque' featured traditional renditions of established, crowd-pleasing arias by Bellini, Mozart and Bizet, and she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2014 playing Elvira in 'I Puritani' with her then husband Michele Mariotti conducting. She also performed at a Bastille Day concert at the Eiffel Tower for 600,000 people, won the ECHO Klassik Award for Best Solo Recording for her album 'Rossini!' and starred in film producer Wim Wenders' production of 'Les Pecheurs des Perles', before taking on pieces by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Rimsky-Korsakov on her 2017 album 'Russian Light'.

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