Born in Russia, Aleksei Kulagin earned his degree in Voice from the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he studied under Prof. Nikolai Okhotnikov and Edem Umerov. Simultaneously he received training at the Oryol State University at the Business Management Department. He has been a member of the Young Artist Program of the Bolshoi Theater since September 2019, guided by Dmitry Vdovin. In 2022, he took part in the Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project and made his festival debut.
Aleksei has participated in masterclasses with Makvala Kasrashvili, Neil Shikoff, Evamaria Wieser, Robert Körner, Sergei Leiferkus, Ernesto Palacio, Placido Domingo, Ildar Abdrazakov, Rosetta Cucchi and performed at the concerts with Luba Orfenova, Semyon Skigin, Ivari Ilija, Mzia Bakhtouridze, at the Beethoven Hall of the Bolshoi. He also appeared in on the Historical and New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Hungarian State Opera, Georgian National Opera and Ballet Theater of Tbilisi at the Zaryadye Hall in Moscow, Tchaikovsky concert hall of the Moscow Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Haus für Mozart in Salzburg and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic.
Among the roles he performs are King Rene and Bertrand in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Sobakin in The Tsar’s Bride, Prince Gremin in Eugene Onegin, Grandfather Frost and Bermyata in The Snow Maiden, Simone in Gianni, Aleko and the Old Gypsy in Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Angelotti in Tosca. On the concert stage, Alexei has appeared in Mozart’s Requiem, Messe Nr°2 by Schubert.
Aleksei has worked with conductors as Tugan Sokhiev, Franz Welser-Möst, Alexander Solovjov, Dmitry Korchak, Mikhail Sinkevich, Philipp Chizhevsky, Anton Grishanin, Mikgail Tatarnikov, Pavel Bubelnikov, Konstantin Chudovsky and directors Christof Loy, Aleksandr Petrov, Aleksei Stepaniuk, Dmitry Belyanushkin.
This 2023/24 season, Aleksei will be Timur in Turandot and Eremit in Der Freischütz at the Semperoper Dresden. He makes his house debut at the Teatro Massimo Palermo as Sparafucile in Rigoletto. At the Müpa in Budapest, he will perform Verdi's Requiem and also Orbán's Requiem. He returns to the Hungarian State Opera for performances of Boris Godunov.
He has received many prices among which the 5th Éva Marton International Singing Competition (Budapest, ll Prize, 2022), 59th Tenor Viñas International Singing Contest (Barcelona, lV Prize, 2022), THE OPERA CROWN, International Voice Competition (Tbilisi, l Prize, 2021), Vlll Galina Vishnevskaya International Opera Singers Competition (Moscow, l Prize, 2021), Xlll Elena Obraztsova International Competition of Young Opera Singers (St. Petersburg, II Prize, 2021) and International Vocal Competition «José Carreras Grand Prix» (Moscow, l Prize, 2021).
