On June 2, 2024, Honored Artist of Russia, soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre Oleg Dolgov will perform on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre for the first time. The singer is going to participate in the final performance of the 2023/24 theatre season, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades in the legendary costume production by Yuri Temirkanov.
Oleg Dolgov is a prizewinner at the International Competition “Tenors of Russia” and a diploma winner at the International Competition of Vocalists (Naples). In 2012–2014 he was a soloist at the Moscow Novaya Opera Theatre. In 2008 he made his debut at the Bolshoi Theatre as Vaudemont (Iolanta by Pyotr Tchaikovsky), and in 2014 he was accepted into the opera company. The singer’s repertoire consists of leading tenor parts, including Don Carlo and Alfredo (Don Carlo and La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi), Don Jose (Carmen by Georges Bizet), Mario Cavaradossi (Tosca by Giacomo Puccini).
In Vladivostok, the singer will perform, as he himself puts it, the “epochal part”, that is, Herman in Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades. Throughout his career, Oleg Dolgov has repeatedly turned to the tragic hero on the verge of insanity, and in March 2024 he made his debut performing that leading character in a production of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
“The part is a very emotional, psychologically tense one. For me, this is an absolutely dramatic piece, where I have to fade into insanity and obsession gradually deepening them as the plot develops”, the singer pointed out.
The critics have noted the singer’s confident and accurate fit into the image of Herman:
“Oleg Dolgov cut a dashing figure: his spinto tenor was smooth and ringing in all registers, which only added to the impression of such a difficult part as Herman”, wrote the famous observer Nikolai Rybinsky.
“Herman sung by Oleg Dolgov (owner of a dramatic tenor with a noble matte timbre) is rich in intonation, and the interpretation of the part is perfect. I recall his reaction to the silence of the Countess in the bedroom scene; this convulsive gesticulation, this internal struggle vividly convey a person in a borderline state of consciousness”, comments Olesya Bobrik in the Musical Life magazine.
