Albina Shagimuratova has been hailed by Opera News as "a phenomenon that must be heard to be believed" and by the New York Times for her "riveting Lucia". She first came to international attention as the Gold Medal winner in the 2007 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. This was followed quickly by her European opera debut as the Queen of the Night (Salzburg Festival under the baton of Riccardo Muti); a role she has come to be regarded as the world’s leading interpreters of. She has performed it with the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, San Francisco Opera, Bolshoi Theater, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Hamburg Staatsoper, and the Lucerne Festival.
In the 2017-2018 season, Albina returns to Houston Grand Opera for performances of La Traviata (Violetta) and to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to perform Elvira (I puritani) conducted by Enrique Mazzola. European appearances include Rigoletto (Gilda) with Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semiramide (title role) at Bayerische Staatsoper and Die Zauberflöte (Queen of the Night) at the Salzburg Festival.
Highlights of the past season include a role debut of Rossini’s Semiramide (title role) at the BBC Proms conducted by Sir Mark Elder at the Royal Albert Hall and recorded by Opera Rara, in addition performances of her signature role as the title character in Graham Vick’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor under Enrique Mazzola at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Albina recently performed a quartet of Mozart operas including Die Zauberflöte (Opéra de Paris and Wiener Staatsoper), Don Giovanni (Wiener Staatsoper), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Houston Grand Opera) and Mitridate, re di Ponto (Royal Opera House).
The Russian coloratura soprano is a graduate of the prestigious Houston Grand Opera Studio and has since appeared at Houston Grand Opera, Bolshoi Theatre, Metropolitan Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Chicago Lyric Opera. She has worked with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, James Conlon, Nicola Luisotti, Zubin Mehta, Patrick Summers, Vladimir Jurowski, Daniel Harding, Robin Ticciati, Edward Gardner, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and Riccardo Muti.
