Hailed as “phenomenal” (The Harvard Chrimson), “impressively epic” (schwäbische.de), and for his “wine-dark bass ” (The Boston Globe), bass-baritone Mikhail Smigelski enjoys a career of vast and various genres, including opera, oratorio, early music, musical theatre and contemporary music. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Mikhail has performed on the world most prestigious stages including Carnegie Hall, Saint Petersburg’s and Moscow’s Philharmonias, Berliner Philharmonie, Kölner Philharmonie, and has collaborated with established European and American opera, music theater and concert companies such as Saint Petersburg Chamber Opera, Theater Aachen, Theater Solingen, Theater Leverkusen, Cohen New Works Festival, New York Ferus Festival, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Beerthoven Concert Series, Opera Leggera, Miami Lyric Opera, and The Cleveland Opera.
From the outset of his professional career, Mikhail Smigelski toured Russia, Europe and the United States, not only as an opera soloist, but also as part of various vocal ensembles, a conductor and a collaborative pianist. His operatic portrayals include Superintendent Budd in Albert Herring, both Figaro and Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Don Alfonoso in Cosi fan tutte, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Nikitich and Varlaam in Boris Godunov, Cold Genius in King Arthur, title roles in Falstaff and Eugene Onegin, and many others. As a passionate advocate for contemporary classical music, Mikhail Smigelski also performed in a number of world and USA premieres, including Switch by John Aylward with East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Golden by Michael Zapruder at Cohen New Works Festival, Orpheus by Evan Lawson with Density 512, and others.
Dr. Smigelski began his advanced musical studies at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, where he received the Bachelor of Music degree and, subsequently, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, Germany, where he completed the Master of Music degree in opera performance. Upon moving to the United States he earned the Master of Music degree in choral conducting at Sam Houston State University and is the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in opera performance at the University of Texas at Austin. Teachers include Alexander Loginov, Evgeniy Fedotov, Henner Leyhe, Dr. Walter Foster and Nikita Storojev. In addition to his performance career, Dr. Smigelski teaches voice, works as a freelance audio producer/engineer and serves as a Director of Music Ministries at The Woodlands Christian Church in The Woodlands, TX.