Born in Saint-Petersburg. Graduated from the Saint-Petersburg State Rimsky Korsakov Conservatoire. 　　Elena Zhidkova made her debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Olga in Eugene Onegin in the production of Gotz Friedrich. Career highlights include appearances at the Bayreuth Festival, several concerts with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, the Edinburgh and Salzburg Eastern Festivals. She also sang in Handel’s Jephta with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Berlin Philharmonie. 　　In 2004, she made an acclaimed debut as Waltraute (Gotterdammerung) at the Teatro Real Madrid, where she returned to sing Brangane (Tristan und Isolde). At the New National Theatre Tokyo, Elena Zhidkova sang Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte) in 2005 and returned to perform Octavian (Rosenkavalier) and Fricka (Rheingold, Walkure). At Semperoper Dresden she sang Venus (Tannhauser) and Adriano (Rienzi) 　　In 2008, she was Judith in an extremely successful production of Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle at La Scala Milan , a role, which she recently performed with Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall London. 　　In 2009, she made her Bolshoi Theatre debut as Marie (Berg’s Wozzeck). In 2011, she sang the role of Marina Mnishek (Boris Godunov).