Asmik Grigorian

Biography

Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian was born in Vilnius and studied at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy. She was a founding member of Vilnius City Opera and has twice been awarded the Golden Stage Cross (the highest award for singers in Lithuania), in 2005 for her debut as Violetta and in 2010 for her performance as Mrs. Lovett Sweeney Todd. Asmik won the Young Female Singer prize at the International Opera Awards in 2016, followed by Female Singer of the Year in 2019.

Asmik has made a name for herself on both the concert and operatic platforms since her international career began with a triumphant performance of Madama Butterfly at the Royal Swedish Opera, proving herself as a committed actress and soprano. She then went on to perform Fedora at the same house with established director Christof Loy, with whom she regularly collaborates, followed by Wozzeck at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with Markus Stenz, which received glowing reviews. In 2017 she made her Salzburg Festival debut in Wozzeck directed by William Kentridge and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. This was followed in 2018 by her critically acclaimed title role debut as Salome at the Salzburg Festival, in a new production by Romeo Castellucci under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst. Described as “a Salome to end all Salomes” (Financial Times), the role won her the 2019 Austrian Music Theater Award for Best Female Lead. The 2018/19 season saw Asmik’s triumphant house and role debut at Teatro alla Scala as Marietta in Korngold’s Die tote Stadt under Alan Gilbert in a production by Graham Vick, and her role debut as Iolanta at Oper Frankfurt.

The 2019/20 season, although cut short, saw Asmik’s return to the role of Manon Lescaut at Oper Frankfurt and at the Bolshoi, and Chrysothemis Elektra at the Salzburg Festival in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski under Franz Welser-Möst, and in concert performing Shostakovich 14 with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Alexander Shelley, and Beethoven IX under Riccardo Muti at the Salzburg Festival.

Asmik returned to the stage in the 2020/21 season as the title role in Christof Loy’s Rusalka at the Teatro Real Madrid under Ivor Bolton. She performed the title role in Madama Butterfly for her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper and made her concert debut at the Opéra de Paris. The summer festival season saw Asmik’s debut at Bayreuth as Senta in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new production of Die Fliegende Hollander and a return to Salzburg for Elektra, highlighting the special relationship she shares with the festival.

An exciting 2021/22 season begins with Asmik’s highly anticipated debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in a new production of Jenufa by Claus Guth. Asmik returns to the Wiener Staatsoper for two productions; as Elisabetta in Don Carlo under Franz Welser-Möst; and as the title role in Manon Lescaut in a Robert Carsen production under Nicola Luisotti. Asmik will then return to La Scala for The Queen of Spades under Valery Gergiev, and make her debuts at the Deutsche Staatsoper in Jenufa in a production by Damiano Michieletto, and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in The Queen of Spades under Kirill Petrenko.

Asmik works with many of the world’s leading conductors including Valery Gergiev, Gianandrea Noseda, Vasily Petrenko, Franz Welser-Möst, Yves Abel, Vladimir Jurowski, Kirill Petrenko, Oksana Lyniv, Markus Stenz, Mikhail Tatarnikov, Alan Gilbert, and Michael Tilson-Thomas. Asmik frequently collaborates with top stage directors including Dmitri Tcherniakov,Romeo Castellucci, Damiano Michieletto, Robert Carsen, Claus Guth, Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, Christof Loy, Barrie Kosky, Alex Ollé, Peter Konwitschny, Robert Wilson, and Vasily Barkhatov to name a few.

2022 will see the release of Asmik’s debut album, a recording of Rachmaninov Songs with pianist Lukas Genusias for Alpha Classics. They will subsequently perform the programme in a series of recitals around Europe in the 2021/22 season, visiting La Scala Milano, Grand Théâtre de Genève, and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg among many others.

Photo by Tim Moteris