Yakov Strizhak
Russian-Israeli bass Yakov Strizhak was born in Petropavlovsk in 1982. In 2010 he graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory (class of Sergei Alexashkin). He won several competitions including the 2010 St Petersburg Spring and the 2008 Sergei Rachmaninoff Music International Competition.
He was a member of the St Petersburg Chamber Opera (2005-2007) , the Opera and Ballet Theatre of the St Petersburg Conservatory ( 2011–2012 ), the New Israeli Opera (2013–2014 ), the Komische Oper Berlin (2014–2015) and the St Petersburg State Musical Theatre (2017-2022). There he has performed a.o. Vasily Sobakin / The Tsar’s Bride, King René / Iolanta, Prince Gremin / Eugene Onegin, the 4 villains / Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Don Alfonso / Così fan tutte, Bartolo / Le Nozze di Figaro, Colline / Bohème, Mustafà / L’Italiana in Algeri, Dulcamara / L’Elisir d’amore and Geronimo / Il Matrimonio segreto.
A member of the ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre since 2022, Yakov Strizhak has sung there many roles including Celio / The Love for Three Oranges, Tikhon Shcherbaty, the Bolkonskys’ Butler and Gavrila / War and Peace, Bearded Peasant / Dead Souls, Old Man / Smelkov’s The Brothers Karamazov, Mustafà / L’Italiana in Algeri, Don Magnifico / La Cenerentola, Sir Giorgio / I Puritani, Don Pasquale, Zaccaria / Nabucco, Marcel / Les Huguenots, Nilakantha / Lakmé, Pandolfe / Cendrillon, Bluebeard’s Castle…
His repertoire also includes : Archbishop / The Maid of Orleans, Malyuta Skuratov / The Tsar’s Bride, Commendatore / Don Giovanni, Don Basilio / Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Sparafucile / Rigoletto, Plutone / L’Orfeo, Old Servant / The Demon…
Guest appearances took him to Ireland and Norway ( title role in the world premiere of Shostakovich’s The Tale of the priest and his Workman Balda) to Israel, the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts (Bard College, NY), the Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam…
He has collaborated with such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Frédéric Chaslin, Sergei Stadler, Andrei Petrenko, Pavel Bubelnikov, Anatoly Rybalko, Arkady Steinlucht, Leon Botstein and Dan Ettinger.
Representation : World