Ilya Silchuk

Ilya Silchuk won first prize at the Zenith Opera Competition in Vienna in 2026. The young baritone combines a solid acting education with a distinctive baritone voice and exceptional stage presence. His broad-ranging repertoire extends from Mozart and Rossini through the German and French repertoire to 20th-century music theatre.

Ilya Silchuk began his operatic career as a member of the Junge Ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden, where he established himself in roles including Schaunard (La Bohème), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Kilian (Der Freischütz), Kuligin (Katja Kabanowa), as well as Herrmann and Schlemil in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. In summer 2024, he made his debut at the Salzburger Festspiele as the First Gravedigger in Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas. Since the 2024/25 season, Ilya Silchuk has been a member of the ensemble of the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, where he has continued to develop into a versatile artistic personality. There, he can be seen among other roles as Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Méphistophélès (Faust et Hélène & Faust :: Mein Brustkorb : Mein Helm), Albert (Werther), Peter the Broom Maker (Hänsel und Gretel), Roman Cycowski (Heute Nacht oder nie), Dandini (La Cenerentola), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Baron Douphol (La Traviata) and Marco (Gianni Schicchi).

Ilya Silchuk is a prizewinner of numerous international singing competitions. As the winner of the International Wagner Young Talent Competition in Leipzig, he was awarded a Bayreuth scholarship. His further distinctions include first prize at the Hamel Opera Competition in Hannover, third prize at the Concorso Lirico Internazionale di Portofino, second prize at the International Giulio Perotti Singing Competition, as well as a special prize from the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden at the Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. He was also a scholarship holder of the Ad Infinitum Foundation Lübeck.

The artist, born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1993, initially studied acting at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute in Moscow. He subsequently spent two seasons engaged at the Vakhtangov Theatre and the Moscow Theatre of Film Actors, where he portrayed, among other roles, Prince Nekhlyudov in Tolstoy’s Resurrection and the notary Andrey Ilyich in Chekhov’s A Misfortune. From 2018 to 2024, he studied voice at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden with Jörg Hempel, thereby laying the foundation for his operatic career.