- Musical Director and Principal Conductor
Musical Director and Principal Conductor Mikhail Sinkevich
Maestro Mikhail Sinkevich, the Chief Conductor of the Music Theater of the Republic of Karelia and Honoured Artist of the Republic, is undoubtedly one of the most prominent and experienced theatrical conductors of his generation. His repertoire in opera and ballet is truly immense. Since taking on the role of Chief Conductor of the theatre in 2013, he has served as the musical director for the following productions:
• Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" (2014)
• Adolphe Adam's "Giselle" (2014)
• Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades" (2015)
• Mozart's "The Magic Flute" (2015)
• Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" (2016)
• Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love" (2017)
• Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" (2018)
• Puccini's "Sister Angelica" and "Gianni Schicchi" (2020)
• Rachmaninoff's "Aleko" (2021)
• Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Tsar's Bride" (2021)
• Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" (2022)
• Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" (2023)
• Tchaikovsky's "The Sleeping Beauty" (2023)
Mikhail Sinkevich was born in Moscow. In 1987, he graduated from the secondary specialized music school at the Belarusian State Conservatory and entered the conducting and choral department of the St. Petersburg State Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, studying under the guidance of the Honored Artist of Russia, P.A. Rossolovsky. In 1990, he continued his education in the opera and symphonic conducting department, completing his studies in 1994. Student of the legendary professor, People’s Artist of Russia Ilya Mussin, already as a student Mikhail Sinkevich conducted at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory Opera and Ballet Theater and the State Children's Musical Theater "Zazerkalye."
After a successful debut with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus in 1994, he was invited to the National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theater of the Republic of Belarus, where he served until 2000. With the theater's troupe, he toured in the Netherlands and Germany. He also served as the chief conductor of the Belarusian State Academic Musical Theater from 1997 to 1999.
From 1996 to 2000, Mikhail Sinkevich taught conducting at the Belarusian Academy of Music. In 2000, at the invitation of Maestro Gergiev, Mikhail Sinkevich became a conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre.
His repertoire on this renowned stage includes operas such as: • "The Marriage of Figaro" • "The Magic Flute" • "Lucia di Lammermoor" • "L'elisir d'amore" • "Nabucco" • "Macbeth" • "Rigoletto" • "La Traviata" • "Il Trovatore" • "Un ballo in maschera" • "La forza del destino" • "Don Carlos" • "Aida" • "Otello" • "Madama Butterfly" • "Il Tabarro" • "Suor Angelica" • "Gianni Schicchi" • "Turandot" • "Pagliacci" • "Adriana Lecouvreur" • "Carmen" • "The Flying Dutchman" • "Lohengrin" • "Das Rheingold" • "Die Walküre" • "Salome" • "Jenufa" • "Life for the Tsar" • "Ruslan and Lyudmila" • "The Maid of Pskov" • "Sadko" • "The Tsar's Bride" • "The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya" • "Prince Igor" • "Boris Godunov" • "Khovanshchina" • "Eugene Onegin" • "The Oprichnik" • "Mazepa" • "The Queen of Spades" • "Iolanta" • "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk» • "The Gambler • "Semyon Kotko" • «The Betrothal in a Monastery"
Concert performances of operas: • "The Pearl Fishers" by Bizet • "Siberia" by Giordano • "Fedora" by Giordano • "Cinderella" and "Cleopatra" by Massenet • "Esmeralda" by Dargomizhsky • "Francesca da Rimini" by Rachmaninoff • "The Gamblers" by Shostakovich • "Grigory Melekhov" by Dzerzhinsky • "Congratulations" by Weinberg • "The Queen of Spades" by A. Tchaikovsky Ballets: • "Swan Lake" • "The Sleeping Beauty" • "The Nutcracker" • "La Bayadère" • "Don Quixote" • "Giselle" • "Scheherazade" • "Chopiniana" • "The Firebird" • "Apollo Musagète," and more
Annually, at the Mariinsky Theatre during those years, Mikhail Sinkevich conducted between 80 to 100 opera and ballet performances per season.
On tour with the opera and ballet company of the Mariinsky Theatre, Maestro Sinkevich conducted in various countries around the world. He performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, the Salzburg Festival, the Melbourne Festival, Amsterdam, Manchester, and others.
On February 11, 2022, he opened the new season after the pandemic with the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre at the Teatro Grande di Brescia in Italy.
Since the early 2000s, Mikhail Sinkevich conducted in opera theaters in Perm, Kazan, and Novosibirsk. With the Perm Opera Theater, he toured in Germany and Switzerland with Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades."
From 2003 to 2006, Mikhail Sinkevich served as the chief guest conductor of the St. Petersburg Camerata symphony orchestra. With this orchestra, he conducted a repertoire that included symphonic works by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, J. Strauss, Ravel, Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, baroque, and contemporary music, as well as concert performances of ancient operas.
In 2009, Mikhail Sinkevich staged Dmitry Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" in the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Japan, for the first time in the country, featuring an international cast of soloists, the New National Opera choir, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
In 2010, he conducted Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Tsar's Bride" at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. In 2012, in collaboration with the Wagner Foundation in Germany, he directed the premiere of "The Flying Dutchman" in Donetsk, which was later successfully performed in Kiev, Lviv, Odessa, and during tours in Germany.
For many years, he collaborated with the National Theater of Croatia in Zagreb, where he premiered Tchaikovsky's "Mazeppa" (2010) and Verdi's "Il Trovatore" (2011). He also conducted operas like "Masked Ball," "Carmen," "Rigoletto," "Jenufa" (2015), and staged ballets like "Swan Lake," "The Sleeping Beauty," and "Giselle." In 2016, he conducted Verdi's "Nabucco" and "La Traviata" at the Sofia Opera in Bulgaria. In 2017, at the Rudolfinum concert hall in Prague, Czech Republic, Mikhail Sinkevich conducted a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" with soloists from the Mariinsky Theatre and the Prague Symphony Orchestra.
In recent years, Mikhail Sinkevich has also appeared as a guest conductor with symphony orchestras in Tyumen (2020), Nizhny Novgorod (2021), and Samara (2022).
In 2022, he conducted Puccini's "Tosca" at the Alisher Navoi State Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and also conducted Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman" and Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" at the Bolshoi Theatre of the Republic of Belarus in Minsk. In 2022 and 2023, Mikhail Sinkevich conducted master classes for young opera conductors and vocal soloists at the opera house in Novi Sad, Serbia.
He has been a member of the jury and conductor at the International Vocalists Competition named after L. P. Alexandrovskaya (Minsk, 2012) and the International Competition for Young Opera Singers named after N. A. RimskyKorsakov (Tikhvin - St. Petersburg, 2016).
In September 2017, he conducted the orchestra in the final round of the International Competition for Young Opera Singers named after Elena Obraztsova, and in July 2019, he conducted the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra in the final round of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in the category of "solo singing."
In 2023, he was invited to the jury of the international vocal competition named after Khalima Nosirova in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
In 2023, Mikhail Sinkevich was awarded the honorary title of Distinguished Artist of the Republic of Karelia. Since 2023, Mikhail Sinkevich has been an associate professor in the conducting department at the Glazunov Petrozavodsk State Conservatory.
