Stephan Pyatnychko

baritone

Stephan Pyatnychko was born in Ukraina and he began his vocal studies at the Lysenko Conservatory in Lviv; upon graduation in 1991 he became the house baritone for the Lviv State Opera (the Ivan Franko Opera and Ballet Theater) for several years. Here he performed the core of his current repertory, which includes Germont in La Traviata, Count di Luna in Il Trovatore, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, Tonio in I Pagliacci, the title role in Eugene Onegin, Robert in Tchaikovsky's Iolanthe, the title role in Rachmaninoff's Aleko, and Ostap in Taras Bulba by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko.
Stephan was a prize winner in the 1993 Belvedere Vocal Competition in Vienna, while in 1991 he won the first ever Solomea Krushelnytska (named for the Ukrainian soprano who was Puccini's first Madama Butterfly) International Opera Vocal Competition in Lviv, Ukraine.
He has been invited by theatres and festivals worldwide, such as the Zurich Opera where he performed Manfredo in Montemezzi's L'Amore dei tre re opposite Samuel Ramey, followed immediately by a new production of Don Carlo opposite José Cura; the San Francisco Opera as Amonasro in Aida, the Washington Opera as Renato in Un ballo in maschera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin where he performed in Un ballo in maschera, Aida, Il trovatore, La forza del destino, the Teatro Municipal in Santiago (Amonasro, Aida), the Opera Bastille in Paris where he sang in Simon Boccanegra, the Paris Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor), the Baltimore Opera (Count di Luna in Il trovatore), the Geneva Opera (title role in Rigoletto), Bregenz Festival, Konzerthaus in Vienna, New York’s Carnegie Hall where he sang in Donizetti's rarely heard Adelia opposite Mariella Devia and Paul Plishka and the role of Francesco in Verdi's I Masnadieri.
Pyatnychko continues to sing the big romantic baritone roles in Lviv, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Prague and other European houses, and will be making his debut with the Opéra d'Avignon in Aida in 2010.