Yana Ivanilova was born in Moscow. She has recorded solo programmes for radio stations, toured with leading companies throughout Europe, worked on a variety of CD recordings, and appeared as a soprano in numerous opera performances, notably with the Moscow New Municipal Opera Theatre and under the direction of conductors including Andrey Boreyko, Kent Nagano, Mikhail Pletnev, René Clemencic, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Evgeny Svetlanov, Vladimir Spivakov, and Richard Bonynge. She has performed principal soprano roles in a variety of operas, among them Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Verdi’s I due Foscari and La traviata, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Rubinstein’s The Demon, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and many others. She has also played the Statue in Rameau’s Pygmalion at Moscow’s Bolshoy Theatre, and sung in the modern premieres of two eighteenth-century operas: Baldassare Galuppi’s Il re pastore in Italy and Sarti’s Eneo nel Lazio in St Petersburg. In addition to her career as an opera singer, Yana is a keen concert and recital artist. In January 2002, she made her Canadian debut, performing various arias from operas with the Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Kerry Stratton. She also participated as soprano soloist in Britten’s War Requiem at Westminster Abbey under the direction of Steuart Bedford on the twentieth anniversary of the composer’s death. Following one of her recent performances in Moscow, the newspaper Kultura praised her for her ‘beautiful, strong and flexible voice. She feels confident in all registers, and her perfect technique allows her to concentrate on creating different artistic images – from tragedy to warm humour’.
