Karina Flores

Karina Flores began her professional musical education at the Rostov State Conservatory, where she studied from 1999 to 2005. It was there that she made her stage debut in the title role of Madama Butterfly. In 2006 she continued her vocal studies in Moscow under Ruben Lisitsian and from 2008 to 2011 in Rome at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Renata Scotto. During this time, she placed third in the 2008 Galina Vishnevskaya International Opera Singers Competition, and she continued her professional career singing with the Helikon Opera in Moscow and on tour. In 2009, she was awarded first prize in the International Competition “Ottavio Ziino” (soprano category).

Flores was engaged as a soloist with the Helikon Opera in 2006 and remained with the company for eight years. Her numerous roles with Helikon included Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, the title roles of Aida and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Stephana in Giordano’s rarely performed Siberia. In 2012 she also made her debut with Israeli Opera as Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame. The production, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, was later released on CD and DVD. It was a role she would later reprise at the Heidenheim Opera Festival in 2019.

Between 2014 and 2019, Flores made a number of European house debuts, including Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana at the Teatro San Carlo in 2014, Desdemona in Otello at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona in 2018, and Leonora in Il trovatore at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 2018. She made her first appearance at the Tyrolean State Theatre in Innsbruck in 2015 in the title role of Adriana Lecouvreur for which she was nominated for the Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis (Austrian Music Theatre Prize) in the “Best Female Lead” category. In later seasons she returned to the theatre as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera (2016) and as Angelica in Suor Angelica (2019).

Flores made her American debut in 2018 as the soprano soloist in a performance of Britten’s War Requiem at the Kennedy Center conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. Her other concert appearances have included the soprano soloist in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem at the Teatro Regio in Turin conducted by Pinchas Steinberg in 2018 and the Mozart Requiem performed in Spain’s Palma Cathedral in 2019.

Between 2021 and 2024, Karina made several notable appearances across European stages and concert venues, including her debut as Donna Leonora in La forza del destino at Oper Klosterneuburg in 2021, under the baton of Christoph Campestrini and directed by Julian Roman Pölsler. In 2022, she performed in a symphonic concert featuring works by Shostakovich, Bizet, and Guiraud at the Perm Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre conducted by Mihran Aghajanyan. The same season, she took on the title role in Aida at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (2022–2023) conducted by Yura Yang and Johannes Willig and directed by Jasmina Hadziahmetovic. In 2023, she appeared as soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Constantine Orbelian and Algimantas Liaučius. She returned to Oper Klosterneuburg, where she has delivered acclaimed performances in two major operatic masterpieces staged within the imperial courtyard of the Klosterneuburg Monastery. During the 2023–2024 season, she portrayed the tragic Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo under the direction of Günther Groissböck. She returned to the festival in 2024 for a new production of Norma, performing the title role of Norma under the musical direction of Christoph Campestrini and the stage direction of Monica I. Rusu-Radman.