Alexey Kudrya
Encyclopedia
Alexey Kudrya is a rising opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

tic lyric tenor star from Russia. According to Neue Stimmen, Alexey Kudrya grew up in a very musical family: His father, Vladimir Leonidovich Kudrya, is professor for music and his mother teaches the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

. Alexey was taught by his father at Moscow's Russian Academy of Music and graduated in 2004 as flautist and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

.

He began his musical career playing flute. As a flute player he was laureate of several internationals contests. His voice career began with the international competition "Romance 2003" in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 where he won the first prize and the special award "Potential of the Nation". He still plays flute on stage, for example, when he performs Prince Tamino in The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....

opera by Mozart.

Noting on his tenor style, Benjamin Ivry
Benjamin Ivry
Benjamin Ivry is an American writer on the arts, broadcaster and translator.Ivry is author of biographies of Francis Poulenc, Arthur Rimbaud, and Maurice Ravel, as well as a poetry collection, Paradise for the Portuguese Queen...

 in The New York Sun commented: "Russia's Alexey Kudrya, who has won medals in several vocal competitions, has a refined lyric voice ideal for recordings and smaller opera houses."

His first engagements in his native Russia took him to the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, also known as Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, as Guest Opera Soloist, where he sang Prince Gvidon in Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore, and Ferrando in Così fan tutte. At the Stanislavsky Theatre he also studied the parts of Alfredo Germont (La Traviata) and Lensky (Eugene Onegin).
In 2006, he also sang under the baton of Teodor Currentzis
Teodor Currentzis
Teodor Currentzis  is a Greek conductor, musician and actor, who works in Russia.-Biography:Currentzis was born in Athens, and at the age of 4 began to take piano lessons, after which, at the age 7, he began violin lessons. He entered the National Conservatory, Athens at the age of 12, in the...

 in concert performances in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...

 to mark the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.

CommandOpera exclaims that "Alexey Kudrya is the most exciting Russian Tenor on the planet today: his vocal instrument positively ‘weeps’ in the most Italianate fashion."

Performances and Competitions

In October 2005 Alexey Kudrya became a laureate of the prestigious international competition "Neue Stimmen" (2nd prize).
In the Final Concert of "Neue Stimmen" competition on 22 October 2005, Alexey Kudrya sang the arias "Kuda, kuda" from Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....

by Peter Tschaikowsky and "Lunge da lei" from La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...

by Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

.

In 2005-2006 he continued to improve his vocal skills in Galina Vishnevskaya's Opera Centre.

In 2006, he debuted in Europe singing Lensky's aria from Eugene Onegin at I International Opera Singers Competition of Galina Vishnevskaya
Galina Vishnevskaya
Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya is a Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist who was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1966.-Biography:...

 (2nd prize).
Further, he was described as the audience favorite, whose tenor is in the lyrical mold of past Russians as Ivan Kozlovsky
Ivan Kozlovsky
Ivan Semyonovitch Kozlovsky was a Soviet lyric tenor of Ukrainian ethnicity, one of the greatest stars of Soviet opera, as well a producer and director of his own opera company, and longtime teacher at the Moscow Conservatory.-Biography:...

 and Sergei Lemeshev
Sergei Lemeshev
Sergei Yakovlevich Lemeshev was one of the most well-known and beloved Russian operatic lyric tenors.-Early Life and Career:Lemeshev was born into a peasant family, and his father wanted him to become a cobbler. In 1914, he left a parish school and was sent to be trained to make shoes in St...

, fluent and expressive, but with a welcome element of vitality.
Aside from singing, he also performed the unusual feat of accompanying his stylish vocal account of "Wie stark ist nicht dein Zauberton", from Die Zauberflöte, on the flute.

In 2007, he won the "Iris Adami Corradetti International Competition" of Opera Singing.

In 2009, he won 1st prize in Placido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

’s world famous "Operalia
Operalia, The World Opera Competition
Operalia, The World Opera Competition is an annual international competition for young opera singers. Founded in 1993 by renowned tenor Plácido Domingo, the competition has helped launch the careers of several important artists, such as Brian Asawa, José Cura, Joyce DiDonato, Elizabeth Futral, Inva...

" Competition held in Hungary, and as well as the Special Prize offered by the Hungarian State Opera. In the same competition, the 1st prize award for soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 was Julia Novikova (soprano), also from Russia.

Same year March–April 2009, he performed Ferrando in Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....

, at Vlaamse Opera House in Netherlands; a Dramma Giocoso in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 (1756–1791) based on a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Lorenzo Da Ponte
Lorenzo Da Ponte was a Venetian opera librettist and poet. He wrote the librettos for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest operas, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte....

.

2010/11 marks his debut at the Vienna State opera, where he will sing Almaviva in "Il barbiere di Siviglia" in December/January. This role will also mark his debut at the MET in September/October 2011.

Other commitments this 2010/11 season include
  • Productions of "Zauberflöte" with the St. Margarethen Festival, Austria
  • "Il barbiere di Siviglia" in Palermo
  • "L’elisir d’amore" and “Barbiere" in Budapest
  • "I puritani" in Geneva
  • "Linda di Chamounix" in Toulon
  • "Don Giovanni" in Marseille
  • "Don Pasquale" in Washington

Operalia tenor winners

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