Born in St. Petersburg Marianna Tarasova graduated from the local conservatoire. Recognition in the west came early and she toured the United States with recitals in 1989, after which she sang in a concert performance of Cosi fan tutte with the Pittsburgh Opera . Then she gathered an impressive array of prizes in numerous international competitions, including the first prize in the international Dvorak Competition in Karlsbad in 1990, the first prize in the Maria Caniglia Competition in Italy in 1992 and the first prize in the Munich Vocal Competition in 1993.
Noticed by Valery Gergiev, she was invited to join the Mariinsky Theatre in 1993 where at the moment she is a leading soloist. With this company she has toured, appearing at the major opera houses and concert halls worldwide such as Teatro alla Scala,Metropolitan Opera,Royal Opera House Covent Garden among others. Her repertoire includes Marfa in Khovanshchina, Konchakovna in Prince Igor , Dalila in Samson et Dalila, Verdi Requiem, Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana , Eboli in Don Carlo , Carmen , Amneris in Aida , Preziosilla in La forza del destino, Ulrica in Un ballo in Maschera.
In 1996 she appeared at La Scala as Blanche in The Gambler , in 1997 made her successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Olga in Eugene Onegin conducted by Antonio Pappano. Highlights from following seasons also include her debut in Boris Godunov at the Salzburger Festspiele, new production of Queen of Spades at the Netherlands Opera, Carmen at the Theater Graz,debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Katia Kabanova). In March 2001 she performed Fenena in Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera under Maetsro James Levine and made her splendid debut at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (Aida, July 2001).During recent seasons Marianna Tarasova successfully collaborated with Vladimir Jurowski at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (Queen of Spades),with James Conlon at the Opera Bastille (as Marina Mnishek in Boris Godunov) and returned to sing alongside with Placido Domingo at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden(Queen of Spades conducted by Valery Gergiev).In 2004 she has made a brilliant debut in role of Jezibaba in Dvorak‘s Rusalka ( New Israeli Opera ,conductor Asher Fish),and debut at the Finnish National Opera (Khovanschina,conductor Eri Klas).
Spring-summer 2005 has been marked by the success at the Welsh National Opera (Cavalleria Rusticana,conductors Carlo Rizzi and Julian Smith) followed by return engagement in Tel-Aviv(Samson et Dalila).Later the same year singer went to appear in the concert performance of Cavalleria Rusticana in Bern followed by the debut at the Opera de Lyon (role of Liubov in the Mazepa production directed by Peter Stein and conducted by Kirill Petrenko).In August 2006 this particular production has been brought to the Edinburgh Festival where Marianna made her succesfull debut .
Other recent engagements included Mazepa at the Welsh National Opera, Carmen at the Miskolc International Opera Festival and Verdi Requiem with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Vedernikov.
Marianna marked the Shostakovich year by performing his Six poems on Tsvetaeva poetry in tour of Europe with Russian National Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and having a recital at the Wall2Wall festival in Derry(Nothern Ireland) which was broadcasted across the UK by BBC.
In addition to her opera performances, Marianna Tarasova is acclaimed as a concert artist, having appeared with, among the other conductors, Claudio Abbado and Maris Janssons, Jury Temirkanov and Semjon Bychkov. She has performed Verdi‘s Requiem, Berlioz‘s La Damnation de Faust,Nuits d‘ete and Romeo et Juliette,Ravel‘s Sheherazade as well as Prokofiev‘s Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Beethoven‘s and Mahler‘s Symphonies with such major orchestras as the Berlin, Munich and London Philharmonic orchestras, San Francisco Symphony, St.Petersburg and Rotterdam Philharmonic orchestras.Marianna Tarasova is also regular guest artist with Russian National Orchestra.In March 2005 she successfully performed with them at the Barbican Center(conductor Mikhail Pletnev).
Marianna Tarasova appears in the Philips both audio and video recordings of Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Sadko,Prokofiev‘s Betrothal in Monastery,Verdi‘s La forza del Destino with the Kirov Opera under Valery Gergiev. She took part to the BBC‘s complete recording of Shostakovich songs and Sony Classical CD recording of Mussorgsky‘s works with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Claudio Abbado.
Future planes include return engagement at the Tampere-talo (Aida) and Marina Mnishek in the new production at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Marianna Tarasova official website www.mariannatarasova.com