BIO || REPERTOIRE || RECORDINGS || PRESS and MEDIA
Soprano Zoya Gramagin is recognized for her beautiful, rich, and powerful voice that possesses warm darker colors, while maintaining a very italianate sound.
Last summer, Ms. Zoya Gramagin made her debut as Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème at the Regium Lepidi Opera Festival in Correggio, Italy. She reprised the role later that year at the Shaw Theatre in London, UK, in December 2024. Earlier in the season, she debuted as Zemphira in Rachmaninoff’s Aleko with Bel Cantanti Opera and took on the title role in Manon Lescaut with Winter Opera St. Louis. Of her performance in Manon Lescaut, Steve Callahan of Broadway World wrote: “I was delighted to find Zoya Gramagin cast in the title role. I’d been quite floored by her voice in Union Avenue’s Eugene Onegin (past season), and she brings the same rich blessing to Manon. She shows such effortless power, she so easily fills the hall. And that pure voice is capable of such drama!”
“In the title role, soprano Zoya Gramagin displays a rich, powerful voice that is an excellent match for wide emotional and musical range of the part.” – Chuck Lavazzi, Stageleft St Louis
The 2025 season began with a memorable appearance at the Bel Cantanti Opera Gala celebrating the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, “The Waltz King.” Ms. Gramagin showcased her remarkable versatility, bringing to life romantic, comic, and emotionally stirring characters from Strauss’s beloved operettas, including Arsena (The Gypsy Baron), Laura (Casanova), and Countess Gabrielle Zedlau (Wiener Blut).
This summer, Ms. Gramagin returns to Italy as a guest artist at the Regium Lepidi Festival to perform the role of the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. In November 2025, she will make her debut as Amelia in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera as part of the Verdi Marathon at Teatro Verdi in Busseto, Italy.
For her role as Tatiana in Eugene Onegin with Union Avenue Opera (St Louis) Ms. Gramagin received highest acclaim by the critics – “Tatyana is sung by the remarkable Zoya Gramagin. Her voice is what the Italians would call a “lirico spinto soprano”, i.e. a soprano with the force and clarity to be readily heard through all the sound of the chorus and orchestra. Her long aria in Act 1, where she writes the letter to Onegin, is a triumph. Her voice is a stunningly beautiful instrument over which she has such utter and complete, yet easy and natural control. I could listen to this lady sing forever..” – Steve Callahan, Broadway World about Gramagin’s role of Tatyana at the Union Avenue Opera, Saint Louis in 2022.
For the role of Madama Butterfly at The St.Petersburg Opera Company, Ms. Gramagin was praised as the right singer for this role: “She has that Slavic steel in her voice that helps to power through the role. The audience stopped the show cold after her “Un bel di vedremo.” Equally impressive to me are her entrance scene and “Tu? Tu? Piccolo iddio!” her third act aria.” (William S. Oser)
Her Liza in The Queen of Spades with Lowell House Opera was called as a “major league success”. Other roles performed include Giorgetta (Il Tabarro) with New York Lyric Opera (NYLO), Amelia in Un ballo in maschera at a NYLO Gala, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Manhattan Opera Studio and Liza with the Moscow Contemporary Symphony Orchestra. In concert, she has appeared as a soloist in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, and Handel’s Messiah.
Zoya Gramagin made her singing debut at a very early age with the famous Russian ensemble of soloists “Cantabile”. Soon after, she was recognized at the Feodor Chalyapin Voice Competition where she won First Prize. She was also awarded an exclusive “Inspiration” Grant, a special award presented by the Russian government in support of unique artistic talents in that country. When she was 18 years old, she received much attention for singing the lead role of Lyubasha in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tsar’s Bride with the Moscow Youth Symphony Orchestra. Her operatic career started with mezzo-soprano roles such as Carmen (Carmen) and Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), which she performed in Moscow, New York, and Novafeltria, Italy, until she transitioned into the lirico-spinto soprano operatic repertoire.
Zoya Gramagin received her music education at the Tchaikovsky Music School in Moscow and the Mannes School of Music – The New School in New York City, where she currently resides with her family.