Yuriy Mynenko

Юрий Миненко

Opera singer, countertenor

Biography

He was born in 1979 in the city of Radomyshl. He graduated from the Odessa National A. V. Nezhdanova Academy of Music. After graduation, he taught solo singing at the Academy from 2007 to 2010. In 2009, he was a finalist at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, becoming the first countertenor to reach the final of this contest. His opera debut took place in 2010 in the role of Annius ("La clemenza di Tito") at the Schwetzingen Palace (Germany).

He has performed on such stages as the Cologne Opera, the Theater an der Wien (Vienna), the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona), the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Paris), the Royal Opera of Versailles, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Opéra de Lausanne (Switzerland), the Stuttgart Opera, and others. He gained recognition after performing the role of Megabise in Leonardo Vinci's opera "Artaserse" under the baton of Diego Fasolis. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in the role of Acis (in Nicola Porpora's "Polifemo"). He also performs other roles in Baroque operas: Shbalank in Henry Purcell's "The Indian Queen," Corrado in Antonio Vivaldi's "Griselda," Lisimaco in Johann Christoph Bach's "Temistocle," Rinaldo and Eustazio in George Frideric Handel's "Rinaldo," Polinesso and Ariodante in Handel's "Ariodante," the title role in Handel's "Scipione," and others.

In 2011, he performed the role of Ratmir in Mikhail Glinka's opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" at the Bolshoi Theatre in a production by Dmitri Cherniakov. In 2020, he performed the role of Nezhata in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "Sadko," also in a production by Dmitri Cherniakov.