A combination of musical sensitivity, superlative technique and strong stage presence marks Elena Pankratova out from among a new generation of dramatic sopranos. The spectacular success of her first Dyer’s Wife in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten in Florence (2010) proved an important breakthrough for her career that also succeeded in invitations from La Scala, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Vienna State Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Opéra Bastille, Festival Arena di Verona, the Royal Danish Opera, the Deutsche Oper and the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, La Monnaie in Brussels, Semperoper Dresden, Houston Grand Opera, Concertgebouw and National Opera in Amsterdam, Genève, Lyon, Napoli, Mariinsky Theater, Bunka Kaikan and NHK in Tokyo, Baden-Baden and Salzburg Easter Festival.

The singer became the first Russian dramatic soprano in the 140-years history of the Wagnerian festival in Bayreuth, where from 2016 till 2019 she sung Kundry in Parsifal (DVD & Blu-ray by Deutsche Grammophon) and 2019 – also Ortrud in Lohengrin.

Known both in German and in Italian dramatic soprano repertoire, Miss Pankratova sings a.o. Odabella (Verdi’s Attila), Turandot, Leonora (Il Trovatore), Tosca, Amelia (Un ballo in maschera), Norma, Leonora (La Forza del Destino), Abigaille (Nabucco), Alice (Falstaff), Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana), Adriana Lecouvreur, Verdi’s Requiem, as well as Elektra, Isolde, Brünnhilde (Siegfried), Elisabeth & Venus (Tannhäuser), Sieglinde, Leonore (Fidelio), Ariadne auf Naxos, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Saffi (Der Zigeunerbaron), Tove (Schönbergs Gurre-Lieder).

The soprano is collaborating with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Kirill Petrenko, Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kent Nagano, Valery Gergiev, Pinchas Steinberg, Kazushi Ono, Marek Janowski, Hartmut Haenchen, Sebastian Weigle as well as with stage directors Krzysztof Warlikowski, Stefan Herheim, Claus Guth, Carlus Padrissa, Romeo Castellucci, Yannis Kokkos, Andreas Homoki, Yuval Sharon, Damiano Michieletto, Uwe Eric Laufenberg and Olivier Py, to name just the few.

Elena Pankratova is giving public and private master classes in voice technique and interpretation all over the world, a.o. at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (2014), at the Verbier Festival and Academy (2015 & 2016), Wagnerian Festival of Bayreuth (2018), at Elena Obraztsova cultural center in St. Petersburg (2021), Opéra Bastille (2021), State Opera of Berlin and Fundació Conservatori Liceu in Barcelona (2023). In October 2015 she became a Professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz (Austria) and shares her rich experience with the new generation of talented young singers.

In January 2021 she was a juror at the renowned International Tenor Viñas Singing Competition in Barcelona.

Upcoming engagements: Dyers Wife at the Berlin State Opera, Elektra in Munich and Berlin (Deutsche Oper), Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera and at La Scala di Milano.