About this Artist

Julia Lezhneva's international career began with a whirlwind when she caused a sensation at the Classical Brit Awards in London's Royal Albert Hall in 2010 with Rossini's Fra il padre at the invitation of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

In 2019, she made her debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic and at the Musikverein Vienna to great acclaim. On re-invitation she returned to the Mozartwoche Salzburg in January 2020, this time under Sir András Schiff in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and will sing there in 2023 in Mozart's Don Giovanni. In December 2020, she performed for the first time with the Bavarian Radio Symphony

Orchestras such as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Orquestra Nacional de España, the Evgeny Svetlanov Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic invite Julia Lezhneva again and again, and she regularly works with renowned conductors such as Adam Fischer, Giovanni Antonini, Herbert Blomstedt, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski and Andrea Marcon.

In 2019 she was "Artist in Residence" at the Kissinger Sommer. Julia Lezhneva is a welcome guest at the Salzburg Festival, the Bayreuth Baroque Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Dubrovnik Festival, the Festival de la Vézère, the Sion Festival, the Nordland Musikfestukke Bodö, Tom Yeong Festival (Korea), to name but a few.

Julia Lezhneva's debut in Handel's Alcina (Morgana) at the Hamburg State Opera was jubilantly celebrated in September 2018 and the re-invitation for Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and further performances of Alcina followed immediately. In spring 2021, the press highly acclaimed her in the role of Poppea in the new production of Handel's Agrippina (directed by Barrie Kosky) - again at the Hamburg State Opera; in 2022 she sang Zerlina in Hamburg in Don Giovanni. She also appears in several other opera productions, including Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso (Angelica), Porpora's Polifemo (Galatea), Germanico in Germania (Ersinda), Carlo il Calvo (Gildippe), Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna, Barberina), Handel's Tamerlano and Oreste.

In winter 2019 she made her debut in Bach's Christmas Oratorio (conducted by Vladimir Jurowski); in the same season she sang in Handel's Messiah and La Resurrezione, Vivaldi's Juditha triumphans; as well as Haydn's Creation and Mahler's 4th Symphony. Julia Lezhneva regularly gives recitals. Her repertoire includes songs and arias by Russian, English, Italian and German composers, ranging from Baroque to Belcanto. Julia Lezhneva releases exclusively with DECCA records.

In April 2017, she released her latest solo album with Concerto Köln, featuring arias by Carl Heinrich Graun. Recent releases include Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo (2022), Vivaldi’s Gloria with Franco Fagioli and Diego Fasolis (2018), Porpora's Germanico in Germania with Max Emanuel Cencic (2018), Handel Arias with Il Giardino Armonico (2015) and her acclaimed debut album Alleluia also with Il Giardino Armonico (2014), as well as Pergolesi Stabat Mater with Philippe Jaroussky, Diego Fasolis, I Barocchisti (2013).

Born in 1989 in a family of geophysicists on Sakhalin Island off the Pacific Coast of Russia, Ms. Lezhneva began playing piano and singing at the age of five. She graduated from the Gretchaninov Music School and continued her vocal and piano studies at the Moscow Conservatory Academic Music College. At 17 she came to international attention as the winner of the Elena Obraztsova Opera Singers Competition, and was invited to share the stage with Juan Diego Flórez at the opening of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in the following year. In 2009, she won first prize at the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki and the following year took first prize at the Paris International Opera Competition, as the youngest contestant in each competition’s history. Opernwelt magazine named her “Young Singer of the Year” in 2011 for her debut at La Monnaie in Brussels. The following year she performed at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in Paris.

Julia Lezhneva’s teachers and mentors include Dennis O’Neill, Yvonne Kenny, Elena Obraztsova, Alberto Zedda, Richard Bonynge and Thomas Quasthoff.