Maxim Paster

Biography

Born in Kharkov, in the Ukraine. In 1994, he graduated from the faculty of choral conducting of the Kharkov Music College. In 1998, he entered the vocal fac­ulty of the Kharkov Institute of the Arts (prof. L. Tsuran’s class; D. Gendelman’s class of cham­ber singing).
From 2002-03, he was soloist with the Kharkov Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

In 2003, he made his debut at the Bolshoi as Bayan (Mikhail Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila).
The Bolshoi Theatre Opera Company soloist in 2004-23.

Repertoire

At the Bolshoi:

The Steersman (Der Fliegende Hollaender)
Tchaikovsky (The Children of Rosenthal)
Macduff (Macbeth)
Andrei (Mazeppa)
Mephistopheles (Sergei Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel)
Shuisky (Boris Godunov)
Zinovy Borisovich (The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk)
Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly)
Tsar Berendey (The Snow Maiden)
Pong (Turandot)
Lykov (The Tsar’s Bride)
Remendado (Carmen)
Truffaldino (Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges)
Captain (Wozzeck)
Rodolfo (La Boheme)
King Charles VII (The Maid of Orleans)
The First Actor, The First Robber (The Story of Kai and Gerda)
Chekalinsky (The Queen of Spades)
Tenor I (Stravinsky’s Renard in the performance The Fables of the Vixen, the Duckling and Balda)
First sailor (The Tale of Tsar Saltan by Rimski-Korsakov)
Fife (Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko)
Drunk Cossack (Mazeppa)
Tenor solo in A Hero of Our Time ballet (Part Bela)

Also in repertoire:

Paolino (Domenico Cimarosa’s II matrimonio segreto)
Lucentio (Vissarion Shebalin’s Taming of the Shrew)
Chekalinsky (The Queen of Spades)
solo parts in Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass, in Verdi’s Requiem, Weber’s Requiem, Schubert’s Messas G-dur, Es-dur, Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle and Stabat mater.

He has worked with the world-famous directors: Robert Wilson, Eimuntas Nekrosius, Robert Sturua, Francesca Zambello, Temur Chkheidze.

Tours

In 2004, he sang the part of the Prince in a concert performance of Antonin Dvorak’s Rusalka (Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, conductor Valery Polyansky).
In 2005, he toured the cities of Germany with the Bolshoi Theatre Children’s Chorus, under the leadership of chorus master Julia Molchanova.
Also in 2005, he took part in a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, and Sergei Prokofiev’s They are Seven Cantata (Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky), and in a performance of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 and Te Deum (Big Hall, Moscow Conservatory, conductor Gunther Herbig).
In 2006, he took part in a performance of Schubert’s Mass in E flat major at the Teatro di San Carlo (Naples), of Stravinsky’s The Wedding and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht in Weimar and Leipzig and of Verdi’s Requiem in Gothenburg (Sweden).
In 2007, he sang Shuisky at Teatro Comunale in Bologna (conductor Daniele Gatti, director Toni Servillo ), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) at Teatro Verdi in Trieste (Italy); he appeared with the Dresden Semperoper in Salome (conductor Fabio Luisi, director Peter Mussbach).
In 2008, he took part in a performance of Bizet’s Te Deum (Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev).
He participates in the Parade of Tenors project (Tenors of the 21^st Century) under whose auspices he tours in Russia and the SNG countries.

In 2016, he appeared with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as Shuysky (Boris Godunov).
In 2017, sang Tsar Berendey (The Snow Maiden) at the Opéra National de Paris and Zinovy Borisovich (The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) at the Salzburger Festspiele (conductor Mariss Jansons, director Andreas Kriegenburg).
In 2018 — Shuysky (Boris Godunov) at the Opéra National de Paris (conductor Vladimir Jurowski, director Ivo van Hove).
In 2019 — Scrivener (Khovanshchina) at the La Scala in Milan, Mefistofele (The Fiery Angel) at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

Died on 1 September, 2023.