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BAYREUTH, Germany — After all, Asmik Grigorian was hungry.
soprano that First time at Bayreuth Festival He was greeted with roaring applause the previous evening, first ordering an espresso to help him wake up. But then he wanted more.
“Is there any ice cream?” asked a waiter.
“Chocolate?” he replied. “Strawberry, vanilla ——”
“All of them,” he interrupted. “All.”
He returned with a mug overflowing with nearly five spoonfuls of different flavors. And ate them all.
40-year-old Grigorian approached dessert like an opera: daring, with complete devotion and an endless appetite. She has a steely and lyrical, expansive and delicate voice in turn, and is one of the fiercest dramatic talents in the field.
“It’s the complete package,” said Franz Welser-Möst, who directed “Salome” and will re-direct Grigorian in “Elektra.” “She has a great voice, a great actress, extremely beautiful, humble, 100 percent disciplined, never late for rehearsals. You don’t come across someone like that very often.”
Like any great artist, director Barrie Kosky said he “carries his own lighting equipment within himself.”
“He is not of this world,” he added. “I think he’ll always return to Planet Grigorian when he gets tired of us.”
Growing up in Vilnius, Lithuania, Grigorian’s home life was intensely musical. His father was the tenor Gegham Grigoryan; his mother is soprano Irena Milkeviciute. Opera was everywhere, and at the age of 5 he was studying piano.
“I was never going to be an opera singer,” he recalled, “but step by step that’s exactly what happened.”
His first teachers were his family; Even now, when Grigorian takes on a new role, he turns to his mother for advice. Before immersing himself in professional life, Grigorian studied at a private art school, then at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater.
She debuted as Donna Anna in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and immediately followed up with Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata”. If there was one thing that shaped her career, it was motherhood. She had given birth to a son while still a student, and she took care of anything that kept her busy – and it paid off.
“I was doing everything,” said Grigorian. “And for many years I couldn’t get out of this very difficult role-playing circle, too much. It was never perfect because it can’t happen if you do this much. But I couldn’t do less because my salary was too low and I needed to support my son.”
He felt trapped. Later, when he was about 30, the strain in his voice took hold and he needed surgery to repair it. He had to take a two-month break, which he saw as a turning point: He could return to the hamster-wheel program or step back to focus on training.
“If I had continued with the dramatic repertoire, I wouldn’t exist today,” Grigorian said. “I decided: OK, I’ll start learning. I invested a lot in learning and my singing got so much better. Then, step by step, my wage started to increase.”
Kosky said Sansburg made its sensational comeback as Salome seemed like a sudden arrival, given its global profile, in fact it’s been working nonstop for years and boosting its reputation. In 2016, she sang several times at her Berlin company, the Komische Oper, including a jarring portrayal of Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.” probably playing as Mrs. Lovett, the arrogant meat pie baker.
“Which soprano in opera history has rehearsed a new production of ‘Onegin’ and returned to perform Miss Lovett in Lithuania?” said Kosky. “I said to him, ‘Aren’t you a little young?’ I asked. and he said, ‘I love the character. (Grigorian said he wasn’t sure if he would ever take on the role of “Sweeney” again, but added, “I just need a few weeks to get the Cockney accent back.”)
“They just had a ball together,” said soprano Karita Mattila, who rehearsed the Royal Opera’s “Jenufa” with Grigorian last spring before the epidemic quarantine. Grigorian gave Mattila a ring from Lithuania.
Dmitri Tcherniakov, who directed the Bayreuth “Holländer”, said that at the rehearsals, Grigorian was “trying to understand everything”. It was his focused attitude that convinced Markus Hinterhäuser, artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, that he was the right candidate for “Salome”. There she had previously acted as Marie in Berg’s “Wozzeck,” and she realized that she was working with “absolute respect for a production.”
“He’s not a solo artist,” Hinterhäuser said. “He always thinks of the group. It was also interesting to see what possibilities he had by being wise. So no singing, no arguing. But acting. …” She raised her hands, widening her eyes and showing her shock at her dramatic talent.
Having never studied acting, Grigorian does not know where his talent on the stage comes from; their director said it seemed like pure instinct. Welser-Möst said he “burned himself in front of the audience” whenever he went on stage. Kosky grouped it with what he calls “a very special group of singing actors you just pray for.”
It will take a long time for New York audiences to hear him live. It was scheduled for a new production of “Salome” at the Metropolitan Opera, which was delayed due to the pandemic, and now that opera will not appear there until it is revived in about five years. She may appear in concert programs before in the United States, hoping to do more as her 5-year-old enters school and their lives become less nomadic.
Until then, his home, whatever city he worked in, was a lifestyle that has barely slowed down during the pandemic: “Dutch” was his fifth new production since spring last year. And despite suffering from the long-term effects of Covid-19, it opened them all up.
He fell ill while in London for “Jenufa” in March 2020. He lost his smell and taste, and his weakness and dizziness put the rehearsals into such a struggle that he cried. He said the disease affects his stomach, skin and nervous system and still presents as palpitations and panic attacks.
However, as with the sound crisis a decade ago, Grigorian clung to his illness as motivation. “I realized there were so many cool things I could do,” she said. “Now I’m at my best age and I have to do it.”
A recording of her Rachmaninoff songs with pianist Luke Genusias will be released next March, and she hopes to release a cycle of albums covering opera arias and contemporary music like Amy Winehouse. Next summer she will return to Salzburg to star in all three one-act actors who make up Puccini’s “Il Trittico”.
Kosky said he could “tell the phone book and that would be great.” He expressed a wish shared by Welser-Möst: Tosca.
“I would die to hear that,” said Wesler-Möst. “I don’t think you’ve had such an intense Tosca since the Callas days – and I know you dare say it.”
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