Netrebko was born in Krasnodar, in a family of Kuban Cossack background. While studying at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Netrebko worked as a janitor at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre. Later when she auditioned for the theatre, conductor Valery Gergiev, recognizing her from her prior work, subsequently became her vocal mentor.

Netrebko’s father was a geologist and her mother a communications engineer. As a child she briefly studied piano and sang in a chorus, and in high school she sang in a traveling musical troupe. When she was 16 years old, she moved to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the hope of becoming an actress.