In this image provided by the Met Opera, soprano Asmik Grigorian prepares for her Metropolitan Opera debut during a rehearsal for Puccini's"Madame Butterfly." – Asmik Grigorian laughs when she recalls that she had been singing professionally for more than a decade when the International“So for 12 years I was nothing, and then I immediately became the best!” the Lithuanian soprano joked in an interview.
It took her many years from her 2004 debut in Norway at age 23 as Donna Anna in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” to achieve the combination of dramatic intensity and seamless vocalism that have opera houses around the world competing for her talents. Eventually the lack of a dependable vocal technique caught up with her. “You come to the age where you can’t just rely on nature,” she said. “I hurt my voice, I hurt my body, I hurt everything.”
“Then I thought, now I did it!” Grigorian, 42, said. “But when you are so focused on technique it’s a bit too cold.” Finding she could trust her voice allowed her to flourish again as a performer “and a different type of magic” started to happen. Acclaim also greeted her last year when she took on two parts many thought would be too taxing for her voice: Verdi’s Lady Macbeth in Salzburg and Turandot in Vienna.“She is the best partner I’ve ever had on stage. End of discussion,” said tenor Joshua Guerrero, who recently sang opposite her in “Madame Butterfly” at London’s Royal Opera House. He cited in particular “her willingness to remove ego and to put the other person forward when they are singing their part.
“But at the same time, it’s pretty challenging,” she said, because a singer with too light a voice will struggle to be heard over Puccini’s thick orchestral textures.“I definitely don’t consider myself a dramatic soprano or a Wagnerian soprano,” she said. “If I sing something dramatic, I put something lyrical in the middle so I keep my flexibility.”
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