Asmik Grigorian

The story is set at the beginning of the Christian era on a large terrace of Herod’s palace, during the reign of Herod Antipas. At night, on a terrace of the palace, Salome, Herod’s stepdaughter, is gazed at passionately by Narraboth, captain of the guard. Jochanaan, a prophet, is imprisoned in a cistern for having slandered Herod. He proclaims the coming of Jesus, but his message is met with incomprehension by the guards. Salome hears the prophet. She manages to convince the guards to bring Jochanaan out so she can see him. Both fascinated and frightened by his prophecies, Salome falls passionately in love with this man. Richard Strauss’s opera at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, directed by Romeo Castellucci at the Felsenreitschule. In her debut in the title role, Asmik Grigorian distinguished herself with her talents as a singer and actress.

Tchaikovsky’s many moods—tender, grand, melancholy—are all given free rein in Eugene Onegin. The opera is based on Pushkin’s iconic verse novel, which reimagines the Byronic romantic anti-hero as the definitive bored Russian aristocrat caught between convention and ennui; Tchaikovsky, similarly, took Western European operatic forms and transformed them into an authentic and undeniably Russian work. At the core of the opera is the young girl Tatiana, who grows from a sentimental adolescent into a complete woman in one of the operatic stage’s most convincing character developments.

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Captured live from Naples’ splendid San Carlo Theatre – the world’s oldest continuously running public opera venue – where it opened the company’s theatrical season, acclaimed director Dmitri Tcherniakov stages a new production of Dvořák’s beautiful, supremely romantic opera about a water sprite Rusalka who longs to find love.

While performing Richard Strauss’s *Four Last Songs* in Salzburg, soprano Asmik Grigorian reflects on her special connection to the Austrian festival.

The two short operas Eine Florentinische Tragödie and Herzog Blaubarts Burg are linked by a central theme: the progressive recognition of the only seemingly familiar counterpart. In Zemlinsky's Eine Florentinische Tragödie, the murder of Bianca's lover by her jealous husband Simone leads to a dialog between the two spouses that surprisingly signals a new beginning of love. In Bartók's one-act opera, however, Judith's journey to the inner depths of her beloved Duke Bluebeard - symbolized by the opening of seven mysterious doors - ends in darkness and loneliness.

When a beautiful young woman in rural Moravia becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she learns that love is sometimes only skin-deep. Asmik Grigorian as Jenůfa in her Covent Garden debut and Karita Mattila as the Kostelnička lead a star cast with Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási conducting a stunning score infused with traditional folk melodies of Janáček’s native Moravia. Claus Guth’s acclaimed staging - both elegant and open while being utterly claustrophobic and oppressive - captures the great humanity at the heart of the opera.

After a victorious battle, three witches predict that Macbeth, who commands King Duncan's army, will ascend the throne of Scotland. Urged on by his wife to force fate, he takes advantage of the monarch's stay in their castle to murder him... The daring Krzysztof Warlikowski revisits Verdi's most powerful Shakespearean opera, with baritone Vladislav Sulimsky and soprano Asmik Grigorian in the roles of the murderous spouses.

Extraordinary soprano Asmik Grigorian tackles the demanding role of Cio-Cio-San, the loyal geisha at the heart of Puccini’s devastating tragedy. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman stars as the callous American naval officer Pinkerton, whose betrayal destroys her. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong reprises the role of the steadfast maid Suzuki, and baritone Lucas Meachem is the American consul Sharpless. Acclaimed maestro Xian Zhang takes the podium to conduct Anthony Minghella’s vivid production.

Opera confronts us with extremes of emotion, sometimes delivering unforgettable, life-changing experiences. Fuoro sacro (‘Sacred Fire’) seeks out singers who have the power to pierce our hearts, presenting three of them at work in the most intimate details of their rehearsals and preparations. Ermonela Jaho, Barbara Hannigan and Asmik Grigorian are watched closely as some of their secrets are revealed: how they inhabit their roles and transform words and notation on a page into that intangible but powerful magic being communicated to audiences from the opera stage. Over 90 minutes of extras are included featuring vocal warm-ups and live performances accompanied by pianists Evgenia Rubinova, Reinbert de Leeuw and Francesco Piemontesi.

In Lithuania, soprano Asmik Grigorian and tenor Dmytro Popov join forces with the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra for a high-profile opera concert at the city's St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral. The programme features excerpts from works by Verdi, Bellini and César Franck.

Production of the Vienna State Opera, October 2024. Inspired by a visit to the Kyoto Costume Institute in Japan, director Kirill Serebrennikov brings the plot of Don Carlo into a contemporary context. He was also inspired by this institute for his stage design - after all, original objects from all eras and cultures are kept there and prepared and stored accordingly to protect them from decay.

The libretto of the most well known opera by Dvořak, which premiered in Prague in 1901, is inspired by the Czech version of the Central European folktale, one we also know as Undine (1811) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué or The Little Mermaid (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen.

Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of American naval officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return.

In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have wronged him and decides to take up his old profession.

Three colours, three moods, three registers. And yet Puccini conceived this triptych as a whole from the outset. He interweaves these three one-act operas, from Il tabarro, a drama of passion set on the quays of the Seine in the early 20th century, to Gianni Schicchi, a burlesque farce set in medieval Florence, and Suor Angelica, a mystical tragedy set in a 17th-century convent.

A study of a man's physical and mental limitations. In the 24 quite harsh and grueling fragments of the unfinished drama, a body and a mind are tested as far as they can be pushed before their owner goes over the edge. Is there just one thing that proves to be too much for Franz Woyzeck, or is it an accumulation of miseries and torments of a wretched existence? Woyzeck is perhaps not so much a bleak account of how miserable life can be as how much strength is required to deal with the daily vicissitudes of life and how delicate and fragile a balance the human psyche rests on.

Live performance from the Komische Oper Berlin, February 15 2016.

Three colours, three moods, three registers. And yet Puccini conceived this triptych as a whole from the outset. He interweaves these three one-act operas, from Il tabarro, a drama of passion set on the quays of the Seine in the early 20th century, to Gianni Schicchi, a burlesque farce set in medieval Florence, and Suor Angelica, a mystical tragedy set in a 17th-century convent.

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Rusalka, a water spirit, lives with her family in the pure waters of the forest lake. When she falls in love with a Prince, she sacrifices her voice and leaves her home in the hope of finding true love in a new world – a world that does not love her back.

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Celebrate the triumphant return of the famed Salzburg Festival with this extraordinary production of Richard Strauss’s Elektra, live from the spectacular Felsenreitschule! Lithuanian soprano Aušrinė Stundytė makes her grand debut on the mythical festival stage in the title role, accompanied by the marvelous Ariane Baumgartner and Asmik Grigorian in the roles of Klytaemnestra and Chrysothemis, respectively.

A general and his stepdaughter are both heavily in debt. When the family's tutor, in love with the girl, gets lucky at the gambling table, he tries to rescue her from her desperate situation, but she outright rejects him. Prokofiev's first full-length opera The Gambler, based on Dostoyevsky's partly autobiographical novella ironically written to settle gambling debts, is rarely performed today. This 2020 production brings together director Vasily Barkhatov and conductor Modestas Pitrenas and stars the winner of the 2019 International Opera Award, Asmik Grigorian, in the role of Polina.

Director Claus Guth heightens the surrealism of this initially extremely cruel fairy tale, which he prefers to see as a »parable«, into the grotesque. Guth sees Calaf, son of the fugitive Tartar king Timur, »thrown into a world that he cannot understand«. It is a system that functions according to its own logic: Princess Turandot, in order to protect herself, has built a bureaucratic apparatus around her that is as brutal as it is effective. For director Claus Guth, it is clear that Turandot is describing her own experience when she speaks of the terrible things done to her ancestor Lu-o-lin; the terror state is her reaction. The stage by Etienne Pluss, the costumes by Ursula Krdina and the choreography by Sommer Ulricksen show it from the outside as well as the inside - and also its decay, which is the necessary prerequisite for Turandot and Calaf's happy ending.

Norma is a woman torn between two systems. As a chaste druid priestess, she decides on war and peace in an occupied land; secretly, she’s the lover of Roman commander Pollione and mother of his two children. Her double life unravels when Pollione plans to leave her for the younger priestess Adalgisa. Caught between love and vengeance, faith and reason, tradition and empire, Norma nearly kills her children—before choosing another, equally radical path. Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 opera is a masterpiece of Italian Romanticism. The role of Norma, with its emotional and vocal range from bel canto to raw outcry, is iconic. Director Vasily Barkhatov sets the tragedy amid political upheaval, where old idols are replaced by new. Star soprano Asmik Grigorian debuts in the title role. Adalgisa is sung by Aigul Akhmetshina.

Originally set in the 15th century, Tchaikovsky's "The Enchantress" is updated to the present day in this innovative production. The charismatic, emancipated Nastasya, who rejects the advances of the devious Mamïrov, duly faces the implacable forces of traditional values in a society riven by divisions between liberal freedoms and religious orthodoxies. The tragic outcome engulfs everyone...

A guileless Japanese girl gives up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour. The last of Puccini’s ‘big three’ operas, Madama Butterfly is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian sings the title role in this colourful production from the Royal Swedish Opera set amongst the glitz and kitsch of postwar Japan.

Narcissus (from Greek Narkissos) shares the root nark-, with narcosis and narcotic. All these words have the same origin in the verb narkaō – to intoxicate through a strong smell. I was particularly interested to find out why a handsome and overall fortunate man says he never feels happy. He draws people in, but ends up hurting them, yet he is impossible to resist.

This is a performance of Wagner's three-act opera Der fliegende Holländer ("The flying Dutchman"), performed by Bayreuther Festpiele, directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov. The staging was notable for two other milestones, as Oksana Lyniv became the first woman to conduct at Richard Wagner’s legendary Festspielhaus since its opening in 1876, and the sensational Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian made her house debut with a standout performance as the opera’s heroine, Senta. The exceptional cast also included John Lundgren (The Dutchman), Georg Zeppenfeld (Daland), Eric Cutler (Erik) and Marina Prudenskaya (Mary).