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Originally from Murmansk north Russia, Nikitin entered the Saint Petersburg conservatory in 1992. In his final year he already appeared as a soloist with the famed Mariinsky Theatre and was soon invited to major theatres and festivals though Europe, the Americas and Asia.
2002 marked his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in War and Peace. Returns to the Metropolitan include Colline (La Bohème), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg), Fasolt (Das Rheingold), Oreste (Elektra), Rangoni (Boris Godunov). He made his Parisian debut at the Theatre du Châtelet in the title role of Rubinstein’s The Demon and he returned in 2005 to sing the title role of Boris Godunov.
Recent engagements at the Paris National Opera include Jochanaan (Salomé), Klingsor (Parsifal) and the title role of Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero. Other recent roles include the title role in Der Fliegende Hollaender in Baden Baden (under Gergiev), Toronto and Leipzig; Fasolt at Le Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (under Rattle); Der Wanderer at the BBC Proms (under Eschenbach); Amfortas (Parsifal) in Berlin and Valencia (under Maazel). He made his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich in 2008 as Jochanaan and has returned there as Klingsor and
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Originally from Murmansk north Russia, Nikitin entered the Saint Petersburg conservatory in 1992. In his final year he already appeared as a soloist with the famed Mariinsky Theatre and was soon invited to major theatres and festivals though Europe, the Americas and Asia.
2002 marked his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in War and Peace. Returns to the Metropolitan include Colline (La Bohème), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg), Fasolt (Das Rheingold), Oreste (Elektra), Rangoni (Boris Godunov). He made his Parisian debut at the Theatre du Châtelet in the title role of Rubinstein’s The Demon and he returned in 2005 to sing the title role of Boris Godunov.
Recent engagements at the Paris National Opera include Jochanaan (Salomé), Klingsor (Parsifal) and the title role of Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero. Other recent roles include the title role in Der Fliegende Hollaender in Baden Baden (under Gergiev), Toronto and Leipzig; Fasolt at Le Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (under Rattle); Der Wanderer at the BBC Proms (under Eschenbach); Amfortas (Parsifal) in Berlin and Valencia (under Maazel). He made his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich in 2008 as Jochanaan and has returned there as Klingsor and Telramund. Recent concert performances include Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death at both the Schleswig Holstein Festival under Eschenbach and at the Berlin Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko and Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the LSO and Rubinstein’s The Demon at the Barbican.
He maintains his relationship with the Mariinsky theatre, returning to sing leading bass-baritone roles - Boris Godunov, Prince Igor, Ruslan, Filippo (Don Carlo), Der Hollander, Amfortas (Parsifal), Wotan (Das Rheingold), The Wanderer (Siegfried) and both Don Giovanni and Figaro.
2010 saw him at the National Symphony Orchestra Washington for Verdi’s Requiem under Eschenbach, and it marked his debut at the Verbier Festival as Jochanaan.
In 2011 he returned to the Metropolitan as Rangoni and included the title role of Boris Godunov in Nice, Telramund (Lohengrin) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Don Pizarro (Fidelio) in Valencia under Zubin Metha’s baton and Ibn Hakia (Iolanta) at the Salzburg Festival.
Highlights of the 2011/2012 season include his return to the Paris Opera as Tomski (Pique Dame), Der Hollander at the Tokyo Opera and Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death in Berlin.
This season’s engagements include singing Rangoni at the Teatro Real Madrid, Telramund at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Klingsor at the MET, and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) at the Paris Opera.
During the 2013/2014 season, Mr. Nikitin will return to the Paris Opera as Orest in Elektra, to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Der Fliegende Hollaender and will sing at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in Il Prigioniero. He will make his debut at the Opernhaus in Zurich as Jochanaan in Salomé as well.
Evgeny Nikitin has recorded Rangoni (Boris Godunov) and Remeniuk (Semyon Kotko) for Philips Classics and two critically acclaimed recordings of Parsifal with him singing Amfortas have been released recently, one with the Mariinsky/Gergiev and the second with Janowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony.
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Reviews
"Evgeny Nikitin delivered such soaring, charismatic, legati at this point that you might almost have believed his promise to renounce evil. He is precisely what the role and the opera needs: physically, vocally, a complete star. "
Edward Seckerson, The Independent
"L’excellent baryton Evgeny Nikitin devient éclatant en Günter manipulateur.
Caroline Alexander, Webthea
[Excellent baritone Evgeny Nikitin’s manipulative Günter is brilliant.]"
"La voix est superbe, riche, avec une aisance insolente dans l’aigu qui n’empêche nullement la noirceur désirée dans les graves. Dans cet éloge du bourgeois comme seul protecteur des arts, la diction incisive du baryton-basse fait merveille.
Laurent Bury, Forum Opéra
[His voice is superb, rich, with an incredible ease in the high notes, which does not hinder the desired darkness it has in the low notes. The bass-baritone’s incisive diction is marvellous in this high praise of the bourgeois as the only protector of the arts.]"
"The strongest performance of all is the Amfortas (ruler of the Grail Kingdom) of Evgeny Nikitin, a Russian who can sing German idiomatically , and who realises all the torment, physical as well as spiritual, in this trickiest of roles."
Michael Tanner, BBC Music Magazine
"Evgeny Nikitin propose un instrument vocal d’une maturité artistique qui force l’admiration. Quelle incarnation terrrifiante ! Révélant son personnage de tout son corps, s’agrippant à son lutrin comme s’il y cherchait la complicité d’un appui, projetant sa voix vers les ténèbres de la salle, il est en communion intense avec la musique de Strauss et les prophéties qu’il lance alentour. Avec son regard exorbité tout à coup perçant, durcissant les traits de son visage tel un Raspoutine blond, le chant de Nikitin fascine, enveloppe, déroute l’audience. Dès qu’il chante, on ne respire plus de peur qu’il nous investisse des reproches qu’il adresse à ses geôliers.
Jacques Schmitt, ResMusica
[Evgeny Nikitin presents an artistically mature vocal instrument that demands admiration. What a terrifying interpretation! By incarnating the character with his whole body, clutching the lectern as if he were trying to find comfort in the support, projecting his voice into the hall’s obscurity, he is in an intense communion with Strauss’s music and with the prophesies he shouts out. With his suddenly piercing exorbitant stare that hardens his facial traits, becoming a blond Rasputin, Nikitin’s singing fascinates, surrounds and destabilizes the audience. As soon as he starts singing, we stop breathing from fear that he will direct the reproaches he addresses to his jailers to us.]"