Tenor NIKOLAI GASSIEV (Prince Shuisky) is an Honored Artist of Russia, and was awarded a Grammy in 1996 and 1998 for roles in Borodin's Prince Igor and Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery. He graduated from the Leningrad State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in 1980, and has been a Mariinsky Theater soloist since 1990. He has toured with the Mariinsky Opera Company to Germany (Hamburg Opera), Spain, Scotland (Edinburgh Festival), Finland, Israel, Italy, the USA (Metropolitan Opera), France, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Korea, Portugal, Luxembourg, Turkey, and the UK (Covent Garden), and he also performs independently at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and La Scala in Milan. His recordings include Betrothal in a Monastery, The Gambler, The Tsar's Bride, The Maid of Pskov, and Khovanshchina for Philips Classics.

Gassiev's repertoire at the Mariinsky Theater includes Andrei Khovansky, Vasily Golitsyn, and Scribe (Khovanshchina), the Pretender Dmitri, Shuisky, and Simpleton (Boris Godunov), Grishka Kuterma (The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia), the Marquis (The Gambler), Don Jerome (Betrothal in a Monastery), Fieramosca (Benvenuto Cellini), Loge (Das Rheingold), Mime (Siegfried), and Herod (Salome).

08/07