The Ukrainian bass-baritone Oleksandr Pushniak garners praise from audiences and critics alike for his impressive stage presence and his exploration of the great roles of the dramatic baritone and bass-baritone repertoire in the field of tension between vocal power and delicate cantilena.

Highlights of his 2025/26 season will include a new production as Amfortas in Wagner’s Parsifal, directed by Floris Visser and conducted by Daniele Gatti, as well as his role debut as Verdi’s Rigoletto, both at the Semperoper Dresden. At his home theater, he will also appear as Amonasro in Aida and again as Baron Scarpia in Tosca, Peter Besenbinder in Hänsel und Gretel, and Comte Capulet in Roméo et Juliette. He will make his debut at the Wrocław Opera as Jochanaan in Salome and return to the Prague National Opera as Scarpia.

In the 2024/25 season, his first as a member of the ensemble at the Semperoper in Dresden, he appeared there as Scarpia under Marco Armiliato and Peter Besenbinder, as well as in the new production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (Comte Capulet) under Robert Jindra. He made his house debut at Berlin State Opera as Barak (Die Frau ohne Schatten) under Constantin Trinks and also sang Jochanaan in two new productions of Strauss’ Salome; under Dominik Beykirch at the Weimar National Theater and at the Baltic Opera Festival in Sopot under Youel Ganzou. He returned to Weimar for the revival of The Flying Dutchmen in the title role, and to the National Theater in Prague as Scarpia. In the summer of 2025, he also made his role debut as Kingsor in Wagner’s Parsifal at the Cēsis Arts Festival. He made his house debut at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Zemlinsky’s Frühlingsbegräbnis under the baton of Lorenzo Viotti.

In 2023/24, he gave his highly acclaimed house and role debut at the Semperoper as Barak in a new production of Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann, and could also be heard there in Don Carlo. As a member of the ensemble in Weimar he sang Michele in a new production of Il tabarro, Capellio in I Capuleti e i Montecchi and the eponymous role in a new production of Sebastian Schwab’s children’s opera Hotzenplotz. He also appeared on stage at the National Theatre in Prague as Scarpia (Tosca) and at the Baltic Opera Festival in Sopot as the Dutchman in two house debuts.

Since 2018 he has could be heard at the National Theater Weimar in the title roles of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Caligula by Detlef Glanert, as well as Amonasro in Aida, JP Morgan in Copeland’s Electric Saint, the Dragon in Dessau’s Lanzelot, the four villains in The Tales of Hoffmann, Leporello in Don Giovanni and in the world premiere of Ludger Vollmer’s opera The Circle, amongst others.

From 2011 to 2017, he appeared at the Staatstheater Braunschweig in roles such as Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, Amfortas in Parsifal, Jochanaan in Salome, Count Tomsky in Pique Dame, Griswold in Argento’s The Voyage of Edgar Allen Poe, Carlo Gérard in Andrea Chénier, Renato in Un ballo in maschera, Comte d’Obenthal in Le prophète by Mayerbeer and Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro.

Guest engagements have taken Oleksandr Pushniak to the Bayreuth Festival – as Donner in Das Rheingold and King Heinrich in the Lohengrin youth production -, to the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Deutsche Oper am Rhein as Amonasro, to Kiel Theater in the title role of Szymanowski’s Król Roger and to the Müpa in Budapest, where he was heard as Baleso in Liszt’s Sardanapalo. In 2016, he made his debut as the Dutchman in the first ever production of a Wagner opera in Singapore; he also sang this role at Erfurt Theater. He performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam during an opera gala of the Dutch Touring Opera.

He is an Alumnus of the opera studio of the Washington National Opera, where he sang e.g. Polonius in Thomas’ Hamlet in a production by Thaddeus Strassberger and under the musical direction of Plácido Domingo.

Oleksandr Pushiak has also worked with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Jaap van Zweden, Kirill Karabits, Dan Ettinger, Patrick Fournillier, Srboljub Dinić, Dominik Beykirch, Alexander Prior and Alexander Joel, and with stage directors such as Peter Konwitschny, Frank Castorf, Barbora Horáková, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Calixto Bieito, Dietrich Hilsdorf, Benedikt von Peter, Philipp Himmelmann, Roland Schwab, Walter Sutcliffe, Johannes Erath and Yona Kim.

He won the 7th Singing Competition for Wagner Voices in Bayreuth already in 2012.

His discography contains publications of Das Rheingold (Donner) with the Hong Kong Philharmonic on the NAXOS label, Sardanapalo (Beleso) and Lanzelot (Drache) with the Staatskapelle Weimar on AUDITE, and Aladin (Muluk) with the Staatsorchester Braunschweig on JPC.