To numerous victories at international competitions, Kristina Mkhitaryan added one more - this time she became a laureate of the XXV International competition Operalia. At the Bolshoi Kristina Mkhitaryan performs as Norina (Don Pasquale), Marfa (The Tsar's Bride), Xenia (Boris Godunov), Gerda (Banevich’s The Story of Kai and Gerda), Gilda (Rigoletto) and Amina (La Sonnambula). Operalia Competition was founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo and each year a select jury rates forty singers between ages 18 and 32. In 2017 Operalia Competition was held at Astana Opera in Kazakhstan. Young vocalists from seventeen countries took part in competition. According to tradition, in the final of the competition, Maestro Placido Domingo himself took his place on the conductor’s podium - this time he conducted the Astana Opera Symphony Orchestra. “This is Operalia’s main mission – to show the world the new artists, to make them famous,” Maestro Domingo emphasized.
Past Operalia winners include Inva Mula, Nina Stemme, José Cura, Erwin Schrott, Joyce Di Donato, Rolando Villazón, Carmen Giannattasio, Dmitry Korchak, Mikhail Petrenko, Maija Kovalevska, Olga Peretyatko, Dinara Alieva.
The participants of the Bolshoi Theatre Young Artists Opera Program have repeatedly become laureates of Operalia Competition, among them are Nadezhda Karyazina (2012), and today's young soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre - Konstantin Shushakov (2011), Olga Kulchinskaya and Bogdan Volkov (2016).
An artist of the Bolshoi Young Artists Opera Program Ruslana Koval received an Encouragement Award, inaugurated this year for every singer that reaches the final round of the competition, but who does not claim one of the top prizes.
Art. Lebedev Studio