Described by critics as possessing “a pure, strong soprano with phrasing of sumptuous elegance” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “a lyric voice focused and alluring... subtly expressive” (Opera News), Olga Chernisheva is one of most interesting and distinctive young singing actresses to emerge on the American scene during the past few years.

A native of Russia, Ms. Chernisheva appeared on the stages of the Bolshoi Opera (Maria in Mazeppa, Prilepa in Pique Dame, Brigitta in Iolanta, Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, Musetta in La Boheme, to name a few), Kazan Opera Theater (Mimi in La Boheme), Stanislavsky Opera Theater (Micaela in Carmen), and Mälmo Opera Theater in Sweden (Musetta) before emigrating to the U.S.A., where she has appeared with West Bay Opera and DiCapo Opera in New York in the title role of Manon Lescaut, Illinois Opera Theater as Tosca, and with Cedar Rapids Opera, Gold Coast Opera and, this past summer, at Opera North as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly.  This autumn, she appeared in Cairo as Tosca and, this spring, will debut it Italy at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo as Carlotta in Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten.

She has appeared on the concert stages of Opera Santa Barbara in an evening of music by Giocomo Puccini, DiCapo Opera (Rachmaninoff’s Francesca da Rimini), in Russia at the Nizhny Novgorod Concert Hall for Bach’s Mass in B-minor, at the Grand Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory for Mahler’s Sympony No. 4 and for Orff’s Carmina Burana, Moscow’s Cathedral Catholic Church for Bach’s Easter Oratorio,  as a featured soloist for both the Notti Musicali Modenesi Festival and Costa Rica’s XIII Festival de Musica Credomatic; and as a featured soloist for the political-cultural event entitled “Days of Russian Culture in Bulgaria, jointly sponsored by the Russian and Bulgarian Ministries of Culture and attended by the presidents of both countries.

In 1996, Ms. Chernisheva won first prize in the Moscow’s “Bella Voce Vocal Competition” and, in 1999, won their grand prize.  In 2000, she received a special award at the International Bulbul Vocal Competition in Baku, and an award at the Moscow art festival Festos.  In 2002, she participated in San Francisco Opera Center Merola Opera Program for young singers and sang Musetta with Western Opera on tour.