Ekaterina Gubanova
Biography
Ekaterina Gubanova has been established 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 Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna 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.
Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) is one the most important roles in her repertoire, which she sang in 2005 with great acclaim at the Opéra national de Paris. After her great success in Paris, she has been invited to sing this role in Baden-Baden, Rotterdam, Paris, New York, Berlin, Tokyp, Salzburg, St. Petersburg, Munich, Buenos Aires and at the Vienna State Opera. Besides Brangäne, she also became renown for her interpretation of Fricka in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, which she performed under the baton of Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera and conducted by Krill Petrenko at the Teatro alla Scala and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. A production with Valeri Gergiev has been recorded for the Mariinsky label. Other roles in her vast repertoire include Eboli, Amneris, Adalgisa, Giovanna Seymour, Santuzza, Marina Mniszech, Lyubasha, Marguerite (Damnation du Faust), Fricka, Brangäne, Venus, Kundry, Fremde Fürstin (Rusalka), just to name a few.
Her debut as Ortud (Lohengrin) at the Berlin State Opera in November 2020 could only be streamed. Clarion (Capriccio) and Santuzza (Cavelleria Rusticana) fell victim to cancellations in the fight against the Corona pandemic. The 2021/ 22 season saw her in the opening production of the Opera Bastille in Paris in Oedipe by Enescu, Don Carlos and Brangäne in a new production of Tristan und Isolde at the Vienna State Opera and as Amneris at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. She also had a great success as Venus (Tannhäuser) at the 2021 Bayreuth festival.
In the 2022/ 23 season, she returned twice to the Metropolitan Opera New York, as Neris (Medea) and Adalgisa (Norma). Another highlight was a new production of Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where she was heard as Venus.
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 frequently 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.
Photo Credit: Alexander Karnaushenko