Yulia Matochkina

Yulia Matochkina opens her 2026/27 opera season with Ulrica in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera at the Semperoper Dresden. She returns to the house later in the season to perform Eboli in Don Carlo and another run of Ballo.  She will also be seen on the stage of Opera Bastille as Azucena in Il trovatore and will bring her trademark Santuzza to Hamburg Opera. On the concert stage Yulia will appear in Bucharest alongside Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann as Amneris in Aida.

Yulia Matochkina’s recent appearances include Ortrud in Lohengrin at the Hamburg Opera, Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera both at the Opernhaus Zürich and at the Edinburgh Festival. Santuzza  in Cavalleria rusticana with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Other recent highlights include Verdi’s Requiem in Rome with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Daniel Harding and broadcast live. Ulrica Un ballo in maschera at the Bayerische Staatsoper München. Santuzza in a new production of Cavalleria rusticana at the Bayerische Staatsoper München as well as in concert at the Verbier Festival. Carmen with Ópera de Las Palmas, Azucena Il trovatore  at the Royal Ballet and Opera. Venus Tannhäuser and Azucena Il trovatore at Bayerische Staatsoper, and Ortrud in Lohengrin at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Eboli Don Carlo at The Metropolitan Opera, Semperoper Dresden, The Royal Ballet and Opera, Amneris Aida and Ulrica Un ballo in maschera at the Spring Festival Tokyo with Riccardo Muti, Dalila Samson et Dalila with Opera de Tenerife. 

Yulia took the first steps of her career with the Mariinsky Theatre and soon became its leading soloist. In her home theater she had the opportunity to build an extended repertoire of the main mezzo-soprano roles such as Amneris Aida, Eboli Don Carlo, Principessa de Bouillon Adriana Lecouvreur, Dido Les Troyens, Dalila Samson et Dalila, Venus Tannhäuser, Ortrud Lohengrin, Brangäne Tristan und Isolde, Wellgunde Das Rheingold, Kundry Parsifal, Polina Pique Dame, Ascanio Benvenuto Cellini, Dulcinée Don Quichotte, Marguerite La damnation de Faust, Joanna The Maid of Orleans and Marfa Khovanshchina, among others. 

She is the first prize-winner of the Golden Medal of the XV International Tchaikovsky competition and the first prize-winner of the 9th Rimsky-Korsakov International Competition for Young Opera Singers.  

Yulia Matochkina was born in Mirny in the Arkhangelsk Region and graduated from the Petrozavodsk State Conservatoire, named after Glazunov, where she studied with Professor Viktoria Gladchenko. She was also a member of the Mariinsky Academy of Young Opera Singers between 2009–2015.