Fyodor Kuznetsov

The role of the Commendatore (in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni) fell into Fyodor Kuznetsov’s reliable hands. In the mass crowd scene in the finale, his powerful and nuance-rich voice allows him string notes together one after another, ascending upwards as if in a spiral, before the astounded audience’s very eyes.

Badisches Tagblatt

Bass Fyodor Kuznetsov’s performance as the implacable and omniscient Teiresias (in Igor Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio) was first-class.

Kommersant

Bass

• Prize-winner at the All-Russian Vocalists’ Competition (Perm, 1987)
• Recipient of the St Petersburg Mayor’s Prize for Art (1994)

Fyodor Kuznetsov graduated from the vocal faculty of the Nizhny Novgorod State Glinka Conservatoire in 1989 (class of Professor Krestinsky). He was a soloist with the St Petersburg State Academic Musorgsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet from 1987-1996. He made his Mariinsky Theatre debut in 1996 as Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Mariinsky Theatre soloist from the same year.

Repertoire includes:
Farlaf (Ruslan and Lyudmila)
Konchak, Skula (Prince Igor)
Boris Godunov, Pimen, Varlaam, Nikitich, Bailiff (Boris Godunov)
Dosifei, Second Strelets (Khovanshchina)
Prince Gremin (Eugene Onegin)
Orlik (Mazepa)
Narumov (The Queen of Spades)
Bertrand (Iolanta)
Chub (Christmas Eve)
Duda (Sadko)
Malyuta Skuratov (The Tsar’s Bride)
Prince Yuri, Burundai (The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia)
A Tall Englishman (The Gambler)
The Inquisitor (The Fiery Angel)
Tkachenko (Semyon Kotko)
Mendoza (Betrothal in a Monastery)
Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, Marshal Davoût, Bennigsen (War and Peace)
Sobakevich (Dead Souls in concert)
District Police Officer (The Brothers Karamazov)
Leone (Attila)
Sparafucile (Rigoletto)
Philip II, Grand Inquisitor (Don Carlo)
The King of Egypt, Ramfis (Aida)
Lodovico (Otello)
Trojan Soldier (Les Troyens)
Lindorf, Dr Miracle (Les Contes d’Hoffmann)
Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni)
Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte)
Daland (Der Fliegende Holländer)
Wotan, Fafner (Das Rheingold)
Hunding (Die Walküre)
Klingsor, Titurel (Parsifal)

Has toured with the Mariinsky Opera Company to Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Baden-Baden (Festspielhaus), London (Covent Garden), Milan (La Scala), New York (Metropolitan Opera), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón), Paris (Théâtre des Champs Élysées) and Madrid (Teatro Real) in addition to performances at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (Italy).

At the world’s greatest theatres he has performed the roles of Varlaam (Boris Godunov, Salzburg’s Festspielhaus and the Stuttgart Staatstheater), Klingsor and Titurel (Parsifal, Municipal Theatre, Santiago), Priest (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Teatro Real, Madrid, and the Prinzregent Theater, Munich) and Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni, Los Angeles Opera and Washington Opera). In November 2004 he took part in a concert by the Baltika Kremerata conducted by Gidon Kremer at Carnegie Hall (Dmitry Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony).

The singer’s recordings include Boris Godunov and Betrothal in a Monastery (Philips Classics), Karoena de zeemeermin by Boudewijn Buckinx and romances and songs by Dmitry Shostakovich for Vox Tempory.

Died at the age of sixty-six on 17 September 2021.