Just in: Top soprano is battling Covid
NewsThe Belarussian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk is in hospital in St Petersburg with a severe Covid infection. Semenchuk, 45, has cancelled her intended debut at Bavarian State Opera.
She writes:
My dear friends, opera and Mariinsky theater fans, and just kind and caring people! I am writing from my page as soon as the strength and opportunity appeared to inform you that I am alive, but at the moment I am fighting COVID under the supervision of serious specialists. Due to illness, I had to cancel my participation in the operas Sadko, the Made of Orleans and Aida at the Mariinsky Theater, as well as the performances of Aida and Macbeth at the Bavarian State Opera, where my debut was to take place. I hope to see you as soon as possible and wish you all a lot of strength, health, optimism and love! Thank you for support ! Many thanks to my family, my loved ones and relatives, my teachers and friends! Special thanks to doctors and nurses! Hearted thanks for your service, for your time, life, knowledge and mercy!
We wish her well.
Hope she will be ok!
Just awful. Probably she was not as yet vaccinated…. this virus is particularly bad for singers, of course. Hope she will recover soon.
I am a singer and almost died from COVID. I use my breathing and singing exercises to help me breathe.
We don’t know if she is vaccinated. Vaccinated people also get COVID. We don’t know enough about the virus.
Vaccinated people still get the virus, but usually they don’t get so ill when this happens.
Get well soon, Katerina!
Over more than a decade I’ve enjoyed Semenchuk’s singing and stage presence, first in Russian roles such as Marina in Boris and then in those such as Amneris, which she did with Muti at Salzburg a few years ago. I remember a concert Tabarro in which she was a zesty Frugola (no small parts, indeed), and she and K. Stoyanova did everything they could to redeem an otherwise poor Met Verdi Requiem in 2017. May this be a small bump in the road on the way to future triumphs.
Praying for your recovery! . .
Is she vaccinated? If so which one? If not, WHY!!!!!!!!
Many people who are currently in hospital struggling with COVID WERE vaccinated, and many of them fully, with two vaccinations (50%, one hears). The notion that when you are fully vaccinated, you cannot get covid is of course false, but the notion that when you are fully vaccinated, you only get mild covid is also not entirely true. Indeed it is the case often, but there are many, many exceptions.
Get better soon, Katia.
Hope she is feeling better soon. Wonderful memories of her Lady Macbeth in Los Angeles and Marina at the Met.
Hello – just a couple of corrections:
1. She’s a mezzo, not a soprano (as claimed in your headline)
2. Semenchuk is Russian, not Belarussian, despite what English Wikipedia says, and despite having been born in a part of the Soviet Union which is now Belarus.
Anyway, this is grim news. I hope she recovers soon and fully.