Born Anatoliy Yuriyovych Mokrenko in a village near Terni in the Sumy district, he studied at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute to become an engineering geologist, graduating in 1956.

He studied voice simultaneously at the Kyiv State Conservatory with Nikolai Zubarev and Alexandra Grodzinska, graduating in 1963.

[2] In 1978, he was the baritone soloist in a recording of Prokofiev's music for Ivan the Terrible, with Irina Arkhipova (mezzo-soprano), speaker Boris Morgunov, the Ambrosian Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Muti.

[1] In 1992, he took the company to Paris to present two operas, as part of a five-months "showcase of the performing arts"[5] from Ukraine.

The National Opera played Anton Rudnytsky's Anna Yaroslavna on a libretto by Leonid Poltava, at home and in France.