![Maria Nikitin](images/musicacademy/faculty/MariaNikitin406x500.jpg)
Maria Nikitin
Opera Coach
Maria was born in Minsk, Belarus. She began to take piano lessons at the age of 6. After having graduated from the Belarusian Art Lyceum, she continued her studies as a pianist at the Belarusian State Conservatory and after moving to Israel, at the Academy of Musi? of Tel?Aviv University (piano performance ) and then completed her studies in Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia in Rome as a Master of Opera Korrepetition under the guidance of Maestro Giovanni Velluti.
In recent years, Maria has been working as a coach, rehearsal pianist and pianist of the orchestra in Opera Royal de Wallonie of Liège in Belgium and Wroclaw Opera Theatre in Poland, for many years as an invited pianist at the Israeli Opera in Tel?Aviv, at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile (Municipal Theatre of Santiago), as well as at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy and Tiroler Festspiele Erl in Austria.
From 2001 she taught piano for seven years at the School of Arts, Arison Campus, Tel?Aviv. At the same time she worked with various choirs and solo artists as an accompanist.
In 2007 Maria began working at the Opera Studio of Israeli Opera, accompanying soloists in their concert tours, worked on opera projects and productions at the Opera Theatre.
Maria performed on radio and television, which included recording of Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel for the Israeli Arts Channel, as a part of an Opera Studio project.
In 2009, to further her professional development, she had her internship at the Mirella Freni Belcanto Academy in Modena, Italy. A year later she was invited to work for the Accademia Internazionale di Canto ”Renata Tebaldi—Mario del Monaco” in Pesaro. This period marks the beginning of her career in the birthplace of opera.
To this day, Maria’s work in various opera productions has brought her into contact and collaboration with many outstanding artists, including such world?famous directors as Pier Luigi Pizzi, Giancarlo del Monaco, Graham Vick, Mario Martone, David Livermore and conductors Alberto Zedda, Donato Renzetti, Michele Mariotti, Gustav Kuhn, Daniele Callegari, Enrique Mazzola, Paolo Arrivabeni, Jader Begnamini, Patrick Davin, Giampaolo Bisanti; as well as many renowned soloists, including Liudmyla Monastyrska, Juan Diego Florez, Olga Peretyatko, Celso Albelo, Dmitriy Korchak, Pietro Spagnioli, Maxim Mironov, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and many others. She worked as a pianist in various master classes, including those tought by director Marco Gandini and conductors Dan Ettinger , Asher Fish and David Stern.
For several years she also collaborated with the International Vocal Arts Institute ( IVAI) in Israel, working in the summer program for young singers from around the world.
Maria provided accompaniment for singers at the musical competitions Aviv (Israel), Vinas (Spain) and Villa in Canto (Italy). She won the first prize at the international musical competition Città di Pesaro in the chamber vocal music category and the first absolut prize at the International musical competition Città di Fasano in the same category.