Born in Kharkov into a family of an opera singer, Alexandra Durseneva graduated from the Kharkov Institute of Arts in 1991 and became a soloist with the Kharkov Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre where she performed many leading mezzo parts.
In 1993, she became a laureate of the International Glinka Singing Competition. In 1994, Ms. Durseneva won the International Chamber Singing Competition "The Amber Nightingale" in Kaliningrad, Russia. She joined the Bolshoi Opera company the same year. Since then she has performed at the Bolshoi such parts as Vanya in Glinka's "Ivan Sussanin", Konchakovna in Borodin's "Prince Igor", Basmanov in Tchaikovsky's "The Oprichnik", Martha in "Iolanta", the Nanny in "Eugene Onegin", Marfa in Mussorgsky's "Khovanschina and Liubasha in Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Tsar's Bride", Clarice in Prokofiev's "The Love for Three Oranges", La Princesse de Bouillon in Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur" and many others.
In 1995, Ms. Durseneva became a Laureate of the International Moniuzsko Singing Competition in Warsaw. The same year she took part in Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh" production at the Bregenz-Festspiele. In 1997 she returned to Bregenz to appear in Rubinstein's "The Demon". She appeared in the concert version of "The Demon" under the baton of Vladimir Fedoseev in Wiener Concert Haus in 1998.
In the 1998/99 Season Ms. Durseneva has a great success as Amelfa in Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Golden Cockerel" production with the Covent Garden in London. The Summer of 1999, she returned to London with the Bolshoi Opera Company as the Innkeeper in Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov". A few months later she again appeared in this part now in the Opera Ireland production in Dublin.
Her latest engagements included Podtochina in Shostakovich's "The Nose" in Leipzig, Amelfa at the Ravenna Festival (Italy) with the Bolshoi Opera. The role of Mrs. Quickly in Verdi's "Falstaff got her a great critical and public acclaim. She also performed Janachek's "Missa Glacolitica" in Madrid, Stravinsky's "Mavra" in St. Petersburg and Jena (Germany), "The Tsar's Bride" in the Wiener Concert Haus, Martha in "Iolanta" in Copenhagen. In 2002, Ms. Durseneva made her debut with the Teatro alla Scala in the same part. Her appearances in 2002 included Podtochina in "The Nose" in Amsterdam, cantata "Alexander Nevsky" by Prokofiev in Dresden and Innkeeper in "Boris Godunov" the Deutsche Oper Berlin. New production of "The Oprichnik" in Cagliari, Italy with Ms. Durseneva as Basmanov marked the beginning of the year 2003.
In 2003 Alexandra Durseneva sang the unusual role of Baba the Turk in Stravinsky's opera "The Rake's Progress", Ratmir in concert perfomance both for Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. In may Alexandra Durseneva took part in the Bolshoi Theatre's Tour of Spain and Portugal singing excepts from "Prince Igor" by Borodin. In June the traveled to Riga, also with the Bolshoi, to sing Clarice in "The Love for Three oranges" by Prokofiev. In October she took part in concert perfomances of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" in Montreal, Canada. In 7 novemer 2003 the singer made her first recital at the Beethoven Hall of the Bolshoi Theatre where she presented "Songs and Dances of Death" by Mussorgsky as well the vocal cycles by Schumann and Brahms.
In 2004, Alexandra Durseneva participated in the Bolshoi Opera soloist concert in Helsinki, sang Lyubasha at Samara Spring Festival and appeared in the Bolshoi performances of The Fiery Angel in Moscow. She also took part in the Arnhem Festival, the Nederland, where she sang Mother in Stravinsky's Mavra. Alexandra returned to the Nederland later that year to perform this part in the other venues. By the end of 2004, she appeared as Sonetka in the Bolshoi's opening of Lady Macbeth of Mzensk and made her debut as Ulrika in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.
March 2005 was very special for Alexandra: she gave birth to her daughter Luybasha and was awarded the title of Merited Artist of Russia.
In July, she was already back to stage singing Mother Superior in the frame of the Bolshoi performances at Ljubljana Music Festival in Slovenia.
In February 2006 sang the part of Vesna in Rimsky-Korsakov's "Snow Maiden" at the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. In summer 2006 performed successfully the part of Duenna in Prokofiev's "Betrothal in a Monastery"(conductor — Vladimir Jurovsky) at the famous Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Great Britain). She created a bright character of Sonyetka in "The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", dedicated to the celebration of Shostakovich's 100th birthday anniversary, performed at the Bolshoi Theatre under baton of Gennady Rozhdestvensky. In November 2006 participated in the concert version of Rakhmaninov's "Aleko" (Old Gypsy Woman), performed at Pleyel Salle (Paris), as well as at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, where the opera was recorded.
In 2007 performed in the premieres of Bolshoi Theatre, such as "Boris Godunov" (The Nurse), shown as well in Slovenia (Ljubljana) and Finland (Savonlinna), and "The Queen of Spades". The part of The Countess became crucial for Alexandra Durseneva's artistic biography. In November 2007 sang one of the leading parts (Ulrica) in "Un Ballo in Maschera" in Bergen (Norway).
At the beginning of 2008 performed her best-known part of Duenna in "Betrothal in a Monastery" at a new Opera House in Valencia (Spain). Also she performed in Madrid in a concert version of "Iolanta" conducted by maestro Yury Temirkanov.
In September Alexandra Durseneva sang the Mamka's part in Boris Godunov in the La Fenice Teatro with Feruccio Ferlanetto who sang the main part. After that she was invited to take part in Sharka by Yanachek in 2009. In October she performed in Iolanta in Festival Hall in London. In December she had a great success with the part of Fenena in Nabucco in the Bolshoi Theatre.
In 2010 Alexandra Durseneva made her debut with the complicated part of Amneris in the Kharkov's Opera and Ballet Theatre within the bounds of the performance dedicated to her mother Lubov Popova-Durseneva - People's Artist of Ukraine. In the period of 2009-2010 Alexandra Durseneva performed with many concerts in Moscow where she sang compositions of Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bizet, Verdi, Saint-Saens, chamber music of Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky.
In 2011 the singer recommenced her recitals at the most prestigious concert halls.
In March 2011 she performed a chamber concert in the Small Hall of Saint-Petersburg Academic Philharmonia The program prepared with the pianist Liubov' Orfenova included works by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Igor Borodin, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The same program was sung for the Moscow public in the Arkhipov Hall of the International Union of Musicians. In April 2011 she performed a concert "Fatal passions are all around…" at the Chamber Hall of the Moscow International House of Music. The program included works on Gypsy theme by Giuseppe Verdi, Georges Bizet, Antonin Dvorak and Mark Minkov (pianist - Vladimir Slobodyan).
In 2011-2012 Alexandra performed in "Boris Godunov", "The Fiery Angel" and "The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" at the re-opened Historic Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. In February 2012 she presented a program with Vsevolod Grivnov at the Arkhipova Hall in tribute to the great Russian singer Irina Arkhipova. In November 2012 Alexandra was a participant and a guest of honour at the Samara Forum "Happy family as a basis of the happy future of Russia". Also she performed "Iolanta" in concert in Surgut.
On the 7th of December the same year at the Arkhipov Hall of the International Union of Musicians Alexandra Durseneva, to commemorate the memory of Irina Arkhipova, for the first time introduced her new programme «Ave Maria» which she performed under the organ accompaniment.
The beginning of 2013 was marked by another event – the performance of the new programme under the name of “About children, death and love” which took place at the same venue, with the participation of the Quartet of the Bolshoi Theatre. During her first solo concert in a renovated Beethoven’s Hall at the Bolshoi Theatre Alexandra Durseneva for the first time performed a cycle of vocal music written by composer B. Yurovsky and based on P. B. Shelly’s poetry. On the 12th of June, Russia’s Independence Day, the singer, together with her colleagues, gave a concert in Israel. Till the end of the year Alexandra introduced solo concerts as well as different concert programmes in St.Petersbourgh (The Maly Hall of Philharmonia), Kaliningrad (The Cathedral Church), at the Chamber Hall of Moscow International House of Music, at Beethoven’s Hall of the Bolshoi Theatre, at the Roman Catholic Cathedral and Evangelical-Lutheran St. Peter-and-Paul’s Cathedral (Moscow).
In 2014, her anniversary year, Alexandra Durseneva was fully engaged into various activities. Apart from the concerts at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow House of Music (within the programme of N. Rimsky-Korsakov Festival), Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Evangelical-Lutheran Stt. Peter-and-Paul’s Cathedral (Moscow) the singer was a jury member at the VIIth Russian vocal festival in London held within the programme of the Russian-British cross-cultural year. Alexandra also participated in Glyndebourne Festival (Great Britain) where she performed the part of Nanny in the opera “Eugene Onegin”. In December this year the singer took part in the premiere of the performance “Rigoletto” held at the Bolshoi Theatre.
A special event in the singer’s life was a release of the solo album “Alexandra Durseneva. Russian romances” by the record company “Melodia” in November 2014 (editor – Dmitry Maslyakov, design – Sergey Tabunov). The album contains the music pieces by the great Russian composers of the XIX-XXth centuries recorded together with such pianists as Vladimir Slobodyan (1994) and Liubov Orfyonova (2014). This CD can be purchased at The Bolshoy Theatre shop, downloaded from iTunes or ordered through the official site of “Melodia”.
In 2105, Alexandra Durseneva performed a series of concerts of Petr Ilyich Tchakovsky's music to celebrate the great composer's 150th jubilee. The concerts were held in the Beethoven Hall of the Bolshoi Theatre, the Chamber Hall of the Moscow House of Music and the Italian Courtyard of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The Bolshoi's soloists Elena Zelenskaya, Elena Evseeva and Evelina Dobracheva also appeared in those concerts.
2016 was marked as the 135th anniversary of Modest Mussorgsky's death, and Alexandra's programs have been thought of as a tribute to the great composer. The concerts took place in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad: the romances and scenes from the operas were enhanced by the on-screen demonstration of photos and movies selections which contributed to a very special atmosphere of the concerts. In Summer 2016, Alexandra Durseneva was one of the promoters and performers of the Opera Nights at the Petrovsky Palace which hosted the stars of the Bolshoi Theatre. In the near future the singer will appear in a concert performance of Sergey Prokofiev's "Semyon Kotko" at Concertgebouw (Amsterdam, the Nederlands).
She has worked with many of the world's leading conductors Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Fedoseev, Andrei Chistiakov, Michail, Vladimir and Dmitri Yurovsky, Mark Ermler, Michail Pletnev, Zoltan Peshko, Yuri Temirkanov, Eliahu Inbal, Gintaras Rinkiavichus and directors — Eymuntas Nekroshius, Harry Kupfer, Sir Peter Ustinov, Tim Hoppkins, Lamberto Pugelli, Graham Vick, Alexandre Sokurov, Timur Tcheidze, Valery Fokin, David Slaiter, David Pountney, Franceska Zambello.
