Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Asmik Grigoryan is reaching a new low – in a positive way – and doing it on one of the world’s top stages.
A star soprano, she would sing the title role in Georges Bizet’s “The Night of Love” the following summer.carmen,” a mezzo-soprano touchstone at the Hamburg Festival.
“I thought if I’m going to do ‘Carmen’ I need to do it now because I don’t want to do it when I’m 54,” Grigoryan, 44, said before a concert this weekend. new york‘S Carnegie Hall,
Maria Callas, Leontyne Price, Jessie Norman and Angela Gheorghiu all recorded Carmen but never sang the full role on stage.
Ana María Martínez and Danielle De Niese are the most notable sopranos in recent years to have sung live performances of the famous seductress, while Victoria de los Ángeles began performing it late in her career in the 1970s, and Geraldine Farrar and Rosa Ponselle performed it decades earlier.
He debuted in this role in July 2026
Grigoryan will sing eight “Carmen” performances starting July 26 in a new production by Gabriela Carrizo, with Jonathan Tetelman as Don José, Christina Mkhitaryan as Michaela, with Teodor Currentzis conducting the Utopia Orchestra.
“I wouldn’t bet against him,” Metropolitan said Peter Gelb, the opera’s general manager. “She’s a very old school singer. She’s fearless when it comes to new performances.”
Grigoryan will sing at Carnegie Hall on Saturday with Thomas Hampson, Sondra Radvanovsky, Nadine Sierra, Brian Jagde and Anita Monserrat, an unusually timed performance during a period when peripatetic singers often come home for the holidays. She is scheduled to join Hampson in the final scene of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” an opera she is scheduled to present at the Met beginning April 20.
Promoter Eugene Wintour, arranging their first American show, wanted to pair stars who had not sung together before. Advance ticket sales at the Carnegie were slow, and Wintour said she was planning another star-studded concert next year but before the holidays.
“In Europe, Christmas and New Year concerts sell out instantly,” he said through a translator. “Working here in the States is a learning process.”
Grigoryan traveled from Vilnius, Lithuania on Friday; Zurich and then New York, going straight from JFK International Airport to rehearsals at Riverside Church.
She said, “I actually promised myself that I wouldn’t stay away during Christmas because it’s the only day when the whole family, we get together in one place and it’s a very, very important day for me.”
It took two decades to become a star
The daughter of tenor Gegham Grigoryan, she made her opera debut in Norway in 2004 as Donna Anna in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and has since become one of the world’s leading dramatic sopranos. Her current season includes the title roles in Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot” and “Manon Lescaut” and Richard Strauss’s “Salome” and she has tentatively planned Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” for the Vienna State Opera debut in 2029.
While she sang Micaela, Carmen’s tessitura is low and breaking the Fuchs boundaries of tone could spark controversy. When Ponselle first headlined “Carmen” at the Met in 1935, Olin Downes wrote in The New York Times: “We have never heard Miss Ponselle sing so badly.”
Soprano Lisette Oropesa said, “If you think you have the notes and you have the personality and you have the desire and you’re a star like Asmik or you’re a star like Ana María Martínez and a theater will give it to you, hallelujah.”
Martínez made her debut as Carmen at Houston Grand Opera in 2014 at the behest of Anthony Freud, the company’s general director from 2006–11.
“The most intimidating aspect of ‘Carmen’ isn’t anything vocal. … It’s more about commanding the stage.” Martinez said. “Asmik is going to be incredible in this role because of her stage presence and her charm.”
Grigoryan’s debut performance as Carmen is expected to attract considerable attention in the classical music world.
“I started living that role a little bit day by day,” he said. “I never know if I can sing before I start a job, so maybe that will be my failure? Who knows? Let’s see.”