The mezzo-soprano Nicole Chirka was born in Kharkiv (Ukraine) and studied with Alexander Volstryakov at the National Academy of Music in Kyiv, where she sang roles including Laura (Iolanta), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro), Olga (Eugene Onegin) and Lyubasha in excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.
In 2020 she made her debut at the Kyiv National Opera as Olga. In 2021/22 she became a member of the Young Opera Ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden, and in 2023 she joined the company’s permanent ensemble. At the Semperoper she has to date sang Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Kitchen Boy (Rusalka), Teresa (La sonnambula), Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel) and Governess (The Queen of Spades).
In 2022 she participated in the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival, where she performed the roles of Glaša and a Woman in Kát’a Kabanová. In the 2023/24 season she sang in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw and performed the role of the Kitchen Boy at the Auditorio de Tenerife.
In 2024/25 she will perform roles including Marta (Mefistofele), Flora (La traviata), the Child in a German-language version of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges and Olga at the Semperoper.
