Asmik Grigorian, soprano
Migran Agadzhanian, tenor

Puccini, according to himself, felt Italian passion and desperation about the story “Manon Lesco”; all of the composer’s sheet music breather with passion and desperation, too, and they perfectly match the rich voice of the young singer that reminds us the great Maria Callas. 

Director Dmitry Bertman staged Anton Rubinstein’s “Demon” (performed in Tchaikovsky Hall in 2015) with Asmik Grigorian as Tamara. He then said of her that she was “a surprise, a gift! She knows her way immediately. Her actir’s navigation is stunning”. Asmik’s partner in that production, the great late Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Demon), was prophetic: “I’ve known Asmik since her childhood, for she is a daughter of my friend and collaborator Gegam Grigorian. She has great power as both actress and human being, and you can’t help feeling it. Her power, it kind of helps me to grow… That’s why I enjoy working with a person like her. She’s an amazing actress. Love her, notice her! She deserves it!” 

Two years later, Asmik was awarded The International Opera Awards (London, 2017) as “Best Young Female Singer”. The same year saw her debut at Salzburg Festival – which can serve as the spring board for international career of young musician – as Marie in Alban Berg “Wozzeck” staged by William Kentridge, while the very next year she sang there Richard Strauss’s Salome (production by world famous Romeo Castellucci). She enjoyed certain critical acclaim, hailed as the new star.

Though recently she sings in spectacles of earlier 20th century, she paid her tribute to Gluck, Hendel, Mozart, Verdi. She sang Tatiana from Tachikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” in at least three (!) different productions of three directors, those of Barry Kosky, Dmitri Tcherniakov, and Vasily Barkhatov.

This night, onstage with Asmik is Migran Agadzhanian, the 3rd prize of 16th Tchaikovsky Competition winner. “During semi-final, he showed a great sense of style and proportion, and while he had great self-control his renditions of the pieces played were accurate”, press wrote.

When you hear that beautiful voice that once made great Renata Scotto exclaine “you seem to be a grandson of Domingo”, it’s hard to believe that we hear a professional piano player, too, a pianist that won several international competitions, and a conductor, who created the St Petersburg Youth Symphony Orchestra. 

Migran Agadzhanian graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatoire as a pianist (class of Vladimir Mishuk) and as an opera and symphony music conductor (class of Vladimir Altschuler). Studied singing with Vladimir Eknadiosov, a teacher at the Rostov Conservatoire. He also studied in Roma with Renata Scotto and Giuseppe Sabatini. In the age on nineteen, he won Elena Obraztsova International Competition Of Young Opera Singers. He took part in the youth programme of Los Angeles opera, and interned at Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. 

It may seem strange that those high class artists still don’t actually have vast discographies, and it fact makes their live performances even more precious.