The international career of the Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva began with a bang when in 2010 she appeared at the Classical Brit Awards at the Royal Albert Hall at the invitation of Kiri Te Kanawa, and caused a sensation. Since then, she has built up a wide-ranging operatic and oratorio repertory and appeared at major opera and concert venues.
She collaborates regularly with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Orquesta Nacional de España, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, under conductors such as Giovanni Antonini, Herbert Blomstedt, Adam Fischer, Emmanuelle Haïm, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski and Andrea Marcon.
Highlights of the 2025/26 season included Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Klaus Mäkelä, and performances with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She also gave recitals with Alexander Melnikov.
Earlier appearances included her debuts in 2024 in Porpora’s Polifemo at the Opéra Royal de Versailles and in 2023 in Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo at La Scala, Milan. She appears regularly at the Hamburg State Opera in roles such as Morgana (Alcina), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Poppea (Agrippina). She has been invited to festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Schwetzingen Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Bayreuth Baroque and the Salzburg Mozartwoche. At the age of 18 she performed with Juan Diego Flórez at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.
She is an exclusive artist with DECCA, and released a solo album of arias by Graun with Concerto Köln that won an OPUS Klassik. Her discography also includes Pergolesi’s Stabat mater with Philippe Jaroussky and Hasse’s Serpentes ignei in deserto with Les Accents (2024). In 2025 she released the album Visiting Rachmaninoff with Alexander Melnikov, which was recorded at the composer’s villa.
Julia Lezhneva was born on Sakhalin Island and studied at the Moscow Conservatory. At the age of 17 she won the Elena Obraztsova International Competition, and in 2009 she won the Paris Opera Competition.
