Sergei Leiferkus

Sergei Leiferkus has appeared with major opera companies and symphony orchestras in the West since the early 1980s, when he made his début with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Kurt Masur. Since then he has appeared frequently at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Vienna State Opera; the Opera Bastille, Paris; La Scala, Milan; Deutsche Oper Berlin; San Francisco Opera; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Palau de les Arts, Valencia; Netherlands Opera, Amsterdam; Hamburg Opera; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires and at the Edinburgh, Bregenz, Glyndebourne and Salzburg Easter Festivals. He has also appeared with orchestras such as the London Symphony, Boston Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra Washington DC and Philadelphia Orchestra under major conductors including Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, James Levine, Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenaz, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin and Sir Georg Solti.  

His operatic roles include Eugene Onegin, Mazeppa, Telramund, Klingsor, Pizarro, Amonasro, Don Carlo in La forza del destino, Scarpia, Don Giovanni, Mephistopheles in La damnation de Faust, Escamillo, Rangoni, Prince Igor, Iago, Nabucco, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra and many others.

Sergei Leiferkus has recorded for BMG/Conifer (with whom he has recorded the complete songs of Musorgsky, the first volume of which was nominated for a Grammy award, the second volume of which won a 1997 Cannes Classical award and the same year three of the CDs were awarded a Diapason d'Or), Decca, Philips, DG, Chandos, Sony and Teldec, and videos of his operatic performances are available on Kultur, RM Arts, National Video Corporation and others.

Sergei Leiferkus has given memorable song recitals at various international venues, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Wigmore Hall, London, the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, the Lincoln Center, the Frick Collection, New York, and in many other cities across the United States as well as at the Tanglewood Festival, the Philharmonie, Cologne and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. He has also given masterclasses in Berlin, Toronto and Boston, and appears regularly in this capacity at the Britten-Pears School, Aldeburgh.

Engagements in the 09/10 season include Scarpia in Tosca at Hamburg State Opera, His Serene Highness in The Tsarina’s Slippers at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Shostakovitch’s The Gamblers with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Eine Florentinische Tragodie at the Accedemia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, the role of the Professor in the world premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s opera The Heart of the Dog at the Netherlands Opera, Rachmaninov’s Francesca da Rimini with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and recitals for the Wigmore Hall London and for Opera du Rhin in Strasbourg. Future work includes Rangoni in Boris Godunov for Dallas Opera and Hakia in Iolantha with the Bayerischer Rundfunk Munich.