Boris Ignatov was born in Moscow. After studying classical philology and theater studies, he worked as a music journalist for the newspaper "Moscow News" and the radio station "Echo of Moscow" as well as an editor for the magazine of the Bolshoi Theater.
In 2007 he joined the team of Gerard Mortier the former director of the Opera in Paris as a production assistant and later as a casting assistant. At the beginning of the 2009/10 season, he began a two-year stint as casting manager at the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent.
In 2012, Boris Ignatov became casting director at the Teatro Real Madrid under the artistic direction of Gerard Mortier. From 2015 to 2017, he was Artistic and Casting Director at the RuhrTriennale under the direction of Johan Simons. Boris Ignatov has been responsible for castings for renowned conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Teodor Currentzis, Sylvain Cambreling, Ivor Bolton, Thomas Hengelbrock, Tomáš Hanus, Alberto Zedda, Leif Segerstam, Dennis Russell Davies, Pablo Heras-Casado, Hartmut Haenchen and René Jacobs. He has also collaborated with the composers Christian Jost, Charles Wuorinen, Mauricio Sotelo and Alberto Posadas as well as the directors Christoph Marthaler, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Peter Sellars, Johan Simons, Ivo van Hove, Pierre Audi, Tatjana Gürbaca, Peter Konwitschny, Nigel Lowery and Martin Kušej.
Boris Ignatov has been casting director of the Stuttgart State Opera since the 2018-2019 season.
