Liudmyla Monastyrska

Liudmyla Viktorivna Monastyrska (Ukrainian: Людмила Вікторівна Монастирська) is a Ukrainian spinto soprano.

Born in Kiev, she studied at the Kiev Tchaikovsky Music Academy.

Monastyrska made her debut with the Ukraine National Opera as Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in 1996 and became a principal soloist with the company in 1998. There, and at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, she sang the title roles of Verdi's Aida and Ponchielli's La Gioconda, as well as Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Lisa in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.

In 2010 she appeared successfully on short notice in the title role of Puccini's Tosca at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which led to her Italian debut at the Festival Puccini in Torre del Lago, Italy, under the conductor Alberto Veronesi. In February 2012 she appeared as Aida at La Scala, Milan.

In 2011, she appeared at Covent Garden, where she successfully stepped in for Micaela Carosi as Aida early in the season, with Fabio Luisi as the conductor. She was also engaged to sing Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth, with Simon Keenlyside in the title role and Antonio Pappano as the conductor. Rupert Christiansen of The Telegraph remarked that "she lacked nothing in volume or stamina, articulating the coloratura cleanly and pitching steadily ... if only one could have detected which language she was singing in." A video recording of the Macbeth production has been issued on DVD. In his review of the DVD, William Braun of Opera News wrote: "Liudmyla Monastyrska's Lady Macbeth is unusually well sung. The role in the 1865 version is a nasty vocal hybrid, but she does beautifully with the later style, sounding quite suitably apprehensive at the start of 'La luce langue,' as the plot spins. Elsewhere, in the earlier style, and almost alone among sopranos, she observes the staccato markings in 'Or tutti sorgete' and has thought about why Verdi might have written them. (She makes them into a cackle of incipient delight.) The sleepwalking scene is admirable, with the final high D-flat wonderfully colored, as if she had glimpsed the abyss."