Dmitry Golovnin

Dmitry Golovnin graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory (trumpet class of Professor Yuri Bolshiyanov). He began to take singing lessons from Stanislav Bureyev, a teacher of that conservatory, and subsequently was an occasional student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (class of Professor William Workman). Has also studied under Franz Grundheber, Virgilijus Kęstutis Noreika, Elena Obraztsova and Badri Maisuradze.

In the 2003–04 season he performed the roles of Don José (Carmen, the Theater Lübeck and a festival in Seville) and Lionel (Friedrich von Flotow’s Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond, the Theater Solingen). This became an important step in his artistic career.

The singer was a soloist at the St Petersburg Chamber Opera (2005–2007) and St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre (2007–2025).

In 2013 Dmitry Golovnin made his vocal debut at the Mariinsky Theatre, singing the role of Macduff in Macbeth (concert performance), and in 2021 he took part for the first time in the theatre’s production, appearing as Alexei in The Gambler (staged by Temur Chkheidze).
Since 2025 the artist has been a soloist with the Mariinsky Opera Company.

Repertoire at the Mariinsky Theatre:
Herman (The Queen of Spades)
Prince Vasily Golitsyn (Khovanshchina)
Alexei (The Gambler)
Pierre Bezukhov (War and Peace)
Macduff (Macbeth, concert performance)
Radamès (Aida)
Don José (Carmen)

He gained international fame thanks to his performances as Herman in The Queen of Spades, Sergei in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Prince Myshkin in Weinberg’s The Idiot, and Prince Vasily Golitsyn in Khovanshchina. Has appeared at the world’s most renowned stages such as the Teatro alla Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Theater an der Wien, the Opéra national de Paris, Madrid’s Teatro Real, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, Brussels’ Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Staatsoper Hamburg, Oper Frankfurt, the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Opéra de Lyon among others. Dmitry Golovnin’s repertoire includes leading roles in Russian, Czech, German, Italian and French operas.

In 2014, for the role of Erik in Der fliegende Holländer, he received the St Petersburg City Government Prize for Culture and was nominated for Russia’s Golden Mask National Theatre Award.