Elena Galitskaya was born in Dimitrovgrad, Russia, and is currently based in France. She originally studied choral conducting at Dimitrovgrad Conservatory, before deciding to study singing. In 2007 she graduated from The Moscow Academy of Choral Arts, where her teachers were Vera Aleksandrova, Dmitri Vdorin and Svetlana Nesterenko. She has also taken part in master classes with Borelli Guida in Italy, with Richard Bado and Diane Zola of Houston Grand Opera and with Teresa Berganza.

In 2009, Elena Galitskaya made her operatic debut with the Opéra National de Lyon, singing Lyusya in the Shostakovich operetta Moscow, Cheryomushki and was immediately re-engaged to sing Laurie Moss in Aaron Copland's The Tender Land. Since then, roles at Lyon have included Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Despina (Così fan tutte) and Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro) and most recently, Frasquita (Carmen). Appearances during 2013 and beyond include the Daughter, in Peter Stein’s production of Shostakovich' The Nose at Rome Opera; Servilia in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito for the Drottningholms Slottsteater in Sweden; Ilia (Idomeneo) and The Italian Singer (Capriccio) for Opéra National de Lyon; roles in Monteverdi's L’Orfeo for Opéra National de Lorraine, Nancy with Christophe Rousset and in a return engagement, will give a recital of songs by Rachmaninoff for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in Nantes.

On the concert platform, Elena Galitskaya has sung Mozart (Requiem), Bach (St John Passion), Mendelssohn (Elijah), Schubert (Mass C), Honegger (Jeanne d’Arc) and Mahler (Symphony n.8), working with conductors including James Conlon, Yuri Temirkanov, Krzysztof Penderecki, Dmitri Jurowski, Kirill Karabits and Thomas Sanderling. She is also a regular collaborator with the Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov.

A keen recitalist, Elena Galitskaya has sung the lieder of Schumann, Strauss and Wolf and the songs of Fauré, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Taneev and Rimsky-Korsakov at venues including the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, De Singel Arts Centre, Antwerp, and also in Paris, Liège, Brussels and Bratislava. She sings regularly at the International Festival at Colmar, France, where concerts have included Rachmaninoff's The Bells and Brahms' Liebeslieder-Walzer and further afield has sung in Japan and USA and Russia.

The recipient of several awards, in 2011 Elena Galitskaya won Third Prize and the Belgian Radio and Television Audience Prizes at the Queen Elisabeth Competition. In 2010 she became an HSBC Laureate of the Académie Européenne de Musique of the Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence and also was awarded a special prize at the International Francisco-Vinas Competition in Barcelona.