María Barakova
Mezzo-soprano Maria Barakova was born in 1998 in Kemerovo (Russia). She graduated in 2017 from the Novosibirsk Musical College under Svetlana Balashova, with a degree in vocal performance. That same year she joined the Bolshoi Theatre’s Young Artist Programme, where she trained with Dmitry Vdovin, Ernesto Palacio, Alessandro Amoretti, Ewamaria Wiezer, Irina Bogacheva, Makvala Kasrashvili, Lubov Orfenova and others. During her time at the Bolshoi she also gave chamber recitals in the Beethoven Hall with Russian, Italian and German song repertoire.
She made her debut at the historic Bolshoi Theatre as Petrovna in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. In 2018 she took part in the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, singing Melibea in Il viaggio a Reims at Teatro Rossini. In 2019 she returned to the festival to perform the soprano secondo part in Rossini’s Stabat Mater.
She has won First Prize at the Christmas Assembly Competition (St Petersburg, 2015), the Natalia Spiller Competition (Moscow, 2018), the Glinka Competition (Kazan, 2019), and the Gold Medal and First Prize at the prestigious 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition.Her operatic roles include Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, Lel in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden, and Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, establishing herself as one of the most exciting young Russian voices with an international career ahead.
