The internationally acclaimed tenor ALEKSANDRS ANTOŅENKO was born in Riga. In 1998 he graduated from the Jāzeps Mediņš College of Music where he played wind instruments and studied singing under Margarita Gruzdeva, who is still his vocal teacher and mentor. Aleksandrs Antoņenko has been a student at the Department of Vocal Music at the Latvian Academy of Music (the masterclass of Prof. Arvīds Imants Luste).
In 1997, Aleksandrs Antoņenko joined the Latvian National Opera as a member of the choir but just five months later: in 1998 he made his debut as a solo artist with the brilliantly executed part of Oberto in Handel's Alcina. In the following years Aleksandrs Antoņenko sang several highly complicated opera roles, among others, Radames in Verdi’s Aida, Gherman in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Lensky in Eugene Onegin, Sergei in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Toska, and also regularly took part in performances of large-scale pieces and concerts.
Since 2004 Antoņenko is the internationally most renowned of Latvian tenors, engaged by the world’s most influential opera companies in New York, Vienna, London, Rome, Milan, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Graz, Dresden, Oslo, Stockholm, Hamburg, Barselona, Paris, Geneve, Zürich and others. As Verdi’s Otello he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in summer 2008 in a new production under the baton of Maestro Riccardo Muti; participated in Salzburg Easter and Savolinna Opera festivals.
His repertoire includes the leading tenor roles such as the title role in Verdi’s Otello, Cavaradossi (Puccini’s Toska), Turiddu (Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana), Canio (Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci), Chevalier Des Grieux (Puccini’s Manon Lescaut), Calaf (Puccini’s Turandot), Gabriele Adorno (Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra), Radames (Verdi’s Aida), Dick Johnson (Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West), Don José (Bizet’s Carmen), Samson (Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila), Prince (Dvořák’s Rusalka), Gherman (Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades), Ismail (Verdi’s Nabucco) etc.
Aleksandrs Antoņenko was the recipient of the Latvian Great Music Award 2003 for vocal performances in several opera productions and Verdi's Requiem. He is also a laureate of Jussi Björling Award and Austrian Grand Prix de la Culture. In 2014, he received the Latvian Excellence Award in Culture. In 2016, he was awarded the Order of the Three Stars.