Boris Gruzin

• People’s Artist of Russia
• Honoured Artist of Ukraine

Graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire with distinction in 1963, specialising in three subjects – opera and symphony conducting, piano and the theory of music. As a fifth year student at the Conservatoire, he was invited to be an assistant conductor at the Novosibirsk Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet and, after graduating, he was made a conductor.
From 1969–1976 and 1989–1993 he was Principal Conductor of the Odessa Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
From 1976-1989 he was Principal Conductor of the Novosibirsk Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
Conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre since 1993.
Professor at the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire since 1996.

Operas he conducts at the Mariinsky Theatre include: Mikhail Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, Modest Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Mazepa, The Queen of Spades and Iolanta, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov, The Snow Maiden, The Tsar’s Bride and The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia; Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Francesca da Rimini and The Miserly Knight, Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Charles Gounod’s Faust, Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Madama Butterfly and Tosca, Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida and Otello, Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula and Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.

His ballet repertoire at the Mariinsky Theatre includes: Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, Alexander Glazunov’s Raymonda, Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, Arif Melikov’s The Legend of Love, Igor Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka, The Firebird, Apollo and Rubies to music from the Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, Schéhérazade to music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Symphony in C to music by Georges Bizet, Scotch Symphony to music by Felix Mendelssohn, Adolphe Adam’s Giselle and Le Corsaire, Ludwig Minkus’ Don Quixote and La Bayadère and Chopiniana.

He has conducted performances by the Mariinsky Theatre in Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Spain and Australia.

Since 2003 he has worked on a regular basis with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Since 2004 he has been a regular guest conductor of the Holland Symfonia in the Netherlands. As a guest conductor he has also worked in Oviedo (Spain) and Oulu (Finland).

Jury member of the International Glinka Opera Singers’ Competition (1986) and the International Rimsky-Korsakov Opera Singers’ Competition (1997 and 1999).