Elena Zaremba was born in 1957 and trained at the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow before joining the Bolshoi Opera in 1984. She made her Western debut in 1989 at La Scala during a Bolshoi tour, and went on to appear at the Royal Opera House (1990), Vienna State Opera (1992), and the Metropolitan Opera, where she debuted in 1999.

Zaremba built her early career on Russian repertoire — Olga in Eugene Onegin, Laura in The Stone Guest, Amelfa in The Golden Cockerel — and took part in the 1991 Moscow world premiere of Nicolas Slonimsky’s The Master and Margarita. She later expanded into core mezzo roles such as Azucena in Il trovatore and Dalila in Samson et Dalila, and her recordings, including Erda in Das Rheingold and Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, are concentrated in Russian and Verdi repertoire.