Anatoli Kotscherga, Bass

Anatoli Kotscherga is one of the most important bass singers. His interpretations of Dosifei (Khovanshchina), Boris Ismailov (Lady Macbeth of Mzensk), Shostakovich’s King Lear, Tchaikovsky’s Gremin (Eugene Onegin) and Verdi’s Grande Inquisitore (Don Carlo), and in particular his interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov are unique. He sang these roles at many big opera houses all over the world, under the best conductors.
Since his international breakthrough in Khovanshchina at the Wiener Staatsoper in 1989, Anatoli Kotscherga has been closely cooperating with the conductor Claudio Abbado. He interpreted Boris Godunov at the Salzburger Festspiele, the Salzburger Osterfestspiele and at the Wiener Staatsoper, as well as during the Wiener Staatsoper´s Japan Tour. Abbado chose him for his recordings of Boris Godunov, Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death and Shostakovich’s King Lear with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for Sony Classical, as well as for his recordings of Khovanshchina and Falstaff for Deutsche Grammophon. 

Claudio Abbado is one of Anatoli Kotscherga’s closest friends, as was Mstislav Rostropovitch. 

Anatoli Kotscherga also works with Gidon Kremer, Myung-Whun Chung, Riccardo Chailly, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Seiji Ozawa and Hugh Wolff.

He started his career in the Ukraine where he studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Kiev. Later he became one of the leading soloists of the Kiev Opera. His repertoire includes all the important bass roles. At the Teatro alla Scala Milano, he perfected his Italian repertoire. 

He sang in Khovanshchina at the Opera National de Paris, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Theatre Royal de la Monanie Bruxelles, in Lady Macbeth of Mzensk at the Teatro Liceu Barcelona, the Sachsische Staatsoper Dresden and the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, in Falstaff under Zubin Mehta and Macbeth at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, in Falstaff and Don Carlo under Lorin Maazel at the Salzburger Festspiele, in Don Carlo at the Teatro de la Maestranza Sevilla, Eugene Onegin at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in War and Peace at the Opera National de Paris, Mazeppa at the Teatro all Scalla Milano, Boris Godunov in Salzburg and Vienna as well as at the Teatro la Fenice Venezia,Teatro Regio Torino and Theatre du Capitole Toulouse. Anatoli Kotscherga sang in Don Giovanni at the Teatro Liceu Barcelona and the Ruhrtriennale and in Katia Kabanova at the Theater and der Wien, in Don Giovanni under Bertrand de Billy at the Liceu Barcelona and at the Salzburger Festspiele.

Anatoli Kotscherga sang at concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, further under Neeme Jarvi with the Goteborg Symphony Orchestra (Shostakovich: Symphony No.13), under Zubin Mehta with the Israel Philarmonics (Mahler: Symphony No.8), under Franz Wesler with the Camerata Academica Salzburg (Shostakovich: Symphony No.14), under Christoph von Dohnanyi with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra (solo scenes from Boris Godunov), at the Gewandhaus Leipzig (Janáček: Glagolitic Mass), at the Victoria Hall Geneva (Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death) and the Teatro Sao Carlos Lisboa (Verdi: Messa da Requiem). He gave recitals at the Vienna Musikverein, at the Berliner Festwochen, at the Carinthian Summer Festival and in the Stefaniensaal, Graz.

In addition to the CDs with Claudio Abbado, Anatoli Kotscherga can be heard as Boris Godunov under Robert Satanovski (Capriccio), in the Glagolitic Mass under Michael Tilson Thomas (Sony), in Lady Macbeth of Mzensk under Myung-Whun Chung (DGG), in Mazeppa, Aleko, Francesca da Rimini, The Miserly Knight and in Shostakovich’s Symphony No.13 “ Babi Yar” under Neeme Jarvi (DGG), in  Don Giovanni under Alain Lombard (Farlane) and on DVD in the famous Don Giovanni production of Calixto Bieito under the baton of Bertrand de Billy.

April 2010