Mikhail Timoshenko

Mikhail Timoshenko was born in Russia and began his musical and acting training in Mednogorsk with Tatiana Mayorova. He continued his studies at the University of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar and at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin with Michail Lanskoi.

From 2015 to 2017 Mikhail Timoshenko was a member of the Académie of the Opéra national de Paris, where he appeared in Jean-Stéphane Bron’s documentary film about the Paris Opéra, L’Opéra. He performed in concerts at the Opéra Bastille’s Amphithéâtre, sang in the world premiere of Joanna Lee’s Vol retour and performed Pluto in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. His other roles for the Paris Opéra include Spencer Coyle in Britten’s Owen Wingrave, Hymas and Tirtée in Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé, First Apprentice in Wozzeck, Silvano in Un ballo in maschera and Mityukha in Boris Godunov.

Highlights of his first professional seasons have included the world premiere of Alexandre Desplat’s chamber opera En Silence in Luxembourg and at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Orlik in Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa in Oviedo, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy and Ottokar in Der Freischütz at the Berlin Konzerthaus, as well as a tour of Mozart’s Requiem under Philippe Herreweghe. Most recently he performed Albert in Massenet’s Werther at the Opéra de Lausanne, sang in Mozart’s Requiem at the Semperoper in Dresden and returned to Paris as Masetto in Don Giovanni.

In the 2022/23 season his engagements will include Marcello in La bohème at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, and Andrei Shchelkalov in Boris Godunov in Toulouse and at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. He will also appear at the Brucknerfest in Linz in Frank Martin’s oratorio Golgotha.

He is a prize-winner in numerous competitions: he won the Maria Callas International Grand Prix in Athens in 2017 and, together with his recital-partner Elitsa Desseva, the international chamber music competition ‘Franz Schubert and Modern Music’ in 2018; they also won the International Art Song Competition Stuttgart (run by the Hugo Wolf Academy) and second prize and audience prize in the LiedDuo competition of the International Schubert Competition in Dortmund. In 2019 he was first prize-winner at the Wigmore Hall /  Independent Opera International Song Competition in London.

Since 2009 Mikhail Timoshenko has campaigned for children with mental health issues, and given charity concerts in Russia.