After graduating from the National University of Music Bucharest, department of Pedagogy and Byzantine Music in 2006, Teodor Ilincăi began his professional career at the Romanian National Opera in Bucharest in the same year. In 2008, he was awarded a scholarship in Vienna offered by CEE Musiktheatre and won First Place at the Great Tenors Tournament in Szczecin, Poland. That same year, at only 25 years old, he performed the role of Macduff in Macbeth by G. Verdi at the Bucharest National Opera House. In 2009, he was invited to sing the same role at the Hamburg State Opera. Later that year, he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera as Ismaele in Nabucco, and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Rodolfo in La Bohème.
In 2010, he won Second Prize at the Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition in Barcelona, which led to his first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona as Rodolfo in 2012. In January 2015, Ilincăi debuted as Pollione in Norma in Bucharest, marking the beginning of his development into the lirico-spinto repertoire.
In the summer of the same year, he sang his first Cavaradossi in Tosca in San Sebastián, followed by his debut as Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana at the Semperoper Dresden.
In 2017, he appeared in the title role of Don Carlo at both the Opéra de Marseille and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Since then, he has returned to the roles of Cavaradossi at the Semperoper Dresden and the Staatsoper Berlin, performing opposite Angela Gheorghiu, and made his Australian debut in the same role with Opera Australia. He quickly became sought-after internationally, appearing in leading roles at major houses such as the Oper Frankfurt, Hamburg State Opera, Opéra de Lausanne, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Hungarian State Opera, Opéra national du Rhin Strasbourg, Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile, Opéra National de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Opera di Genova, San Diego Opera, Macerata Opera Festival, Avenches Opéra Festival, Riga National Opera, Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Semperoper Dresden, New National Theatre Tokyo, and many others.
In the 2017/18 season, Ilincăi made his debut at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels as Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana, a role he also reprised at the Hamburg State Opera. That season also marked his debut as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. During the 2018/19 season, he appeared for the first time with ABAO Bilbao as Rodolfo in La Bohème, sang Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at both the Vienna State Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and debuted as Don José in Carmen at the Hamburg State Opera.
Other highlights of recent seasons have included Calaf in Turandot at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, and the Zürich Opera House, as well as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur at the Riga Opera House. Ilincăi has successfully expanded his repertoire with spinto-dramatic roles such as Canio in Pagliacci at the Bucharest National Opera House, and both Radamès and Otello at the Timișoara National Opera House.
Teodor Ilincăi has frequently appeared in concerts alongside world-renowned opera stars such as Angela Gheorghiu, Kristine Opolais, and Anna Pirozzi. His most recent engagements include Otello at Opera Tbilisi, Cavaradossi in Tosca at the New National Theatre Tokyo, Don José in Carmen at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera in Warsaw, Manrico in Il Trovatore at the Opéra de Marseille and Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra at the Cluj-Napoca Romanian National Opera.
He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Soloist of the Year at the Bucharest VIP Gala Awards, the Ludovic Spiess Prize from the Romanian Music Forum (2009), the In Memoriam Iosif Sava Distinction awarded by Radio România Cultural (2010), and the Award of Excellence by Elite Art Club UNESCO Romania for serving as a cultural ambassador for Romania worldwide (2013). In March 2016, Ilincăi was conferred the Order of the Romanian Crown at the Knight rank by Her Royal Highness Princess Margareta, at the request of His Majesty King Michael I of Romania. In 2018, he was promoted to the Officer rank of the same Order by Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Romanian Crown.
Mr. Ilincăi resides in Romania and, when not performing on the world’s major opera stages, has also earned acclaim as a published poet and writer of aphorisms. His two published volumes are Cromatisme (2013) and Mozaic (2019).