Alevtina Ioffe
August 1, 1978 (Moscow, Russia)
Conductor
Alevtina Ioffe is one of the most exciting conductors of her generation. Her international activity started in 2018, when she made a successful debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin conducting The Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky and was immediately re-invited.
In April 2019 she made her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper with double bill of Tchaikovsky’s Yolanta and Stravinsky’s Mavra directed by Axel Ranisch that was filmed and released on DVD. The success of this production has propelled Ioffe’s international activities, starting with Germany:
- during the season 2020/21 she has made her debut at the Komische Oper Berlin with a new production of Die Grossherzogin von Gerolstein by Offenbach staged by Barrie Kosky and was reinvited in 2022 for Les contes d’Hoffmann.
- during the 2021/22 season she made two important debuts at the Opera in Stuttgart with a new production of Hänsel und Gretel and with the Seattle Opera conducting Le nozze di Figaro, thus marking her debut in the United States.
She made her debut at the Philharmonie de Paris in October 2021, conducting the Orchestre de l’Île-de-France and was immediately reinvited for the season 2022/23 and 2023/24. The same happened with the Staatskapelle Weimer, where he made her debut in June 2022, followed by an immediate invitation for the season 2022/23.
Highlights of the season 2022/23 include the debuts at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona with La bohème, at the Opernhaus Zurich with a new ballet production, with the Orchestra della Toscana and the Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari for symphonic programs and her return to the US for a new production of La bohème at the Washington National Opera.
Alevtina Ioffe has been the Music Director of Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, appointed in February 2021 after making a sensational debut in December 2020 conducting Die Zauberflöte and her immediate return with Il barbiere di Siviglia in January 2021.
She is the first women to lead an important musical institution in Russia.
Born in Moscow, Alevtina Ioffe studied choral conducting, classical vocal and piano at the State Musical Pedagogical Institute “Ippolitov-Ivanov” and graduated from the Faculty of Opera and Symphony Conducting of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory under Vladimir Ponkin.
Following her experiences as an assistant conductor at the San Francisco Opera with Donald Runnicles, in 2009 Ioffe won third prize at the Victor de Sabata Conducting Competition in Trieste, Italy with special mention from the orchestra.
Alevtina Ioffe was also Music Director of The State Opera and Ballet Theatre for Young Audience “Natalia Sats” in Moscow (2011-2021).
As Music Director of the Natalia Sats Theatre she has led a number of new productions in wide-ranging repertoire including Alcina by Händel, Madama Butterfly by Puccini, La forza del destino by Verdi, Carmen by Bizet, Iolanta and Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky, Die Zauberflöte by Mozart, L’enfant et les sortilèges by Ravel as well as The Tale of Tsar Saltan and The Golden Cockerel by Rimsky-Korsakov.
As music director and conductor of the project “Russian Seasons of the XXI Century”, initiated by Andris Liepa, Ioffe conducted the ballets The Firebird and Petrushka by Stravinsky, both presented in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and in London at the Coliseum. She also created a program entitled “Portraits of Composers” where she introduced the audience to rarely performed works by Britten, Stravinsky, Honegger and Schoenberg. Contemporary works for the stage, such as the ballet The Little Mermaid by Lera Auerbach, are also an important part of her repertoire.
Ioffe has conducted some of the most important Russian orchestras including the Novaya Rossiya Orchestra, the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Krasnodar Symphony Orchestra.
In September 2020 Alevtina Ioffe has conducted for the first time the Orchestre National de Lille, where she will return in March 2023.
In 2016 she appeared at the Perm Festival with Denis Matsuev and the winners of the Tchaikovsky Competition leading the Russian National Orchestra.
Between 2008 and 2011
She conducted at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre and was frequently invited to conduct at the Teatro Massimo Bellini, Catania and at the Teatro Verdi, Trieste in Italy as well as at the Oldenburgische Staatstheater in Germany.
