Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus
Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus
Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus
Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus
On 11 February, on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus the part of the Duke of Mantua in the opera Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi will be performed by the finalist of the "Grand Opera" and the winner of the Grand Prix of the 3rd Minsk International Singing Competition Tigran Ohanyan, the conductor is Maestro Kriss Russman.
Tigran Ohanyan is a graduate of Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan majoring in Musical Art (graduated in 2016 with Master's degree). He is a winner of the special prize of the Delphic Games in Yerevan (2010), in 2012, he received the Bronze award of the same forum in Astana. In 2013, the artist received a special prize at the Competition of Young Opera singers in St Petersburg. In 2015, at the Jāzeps Vītols International Vocal Competition in Riga he was awarded the title of "A Promising Young Singer." In 2016, he was awarded the prize of the President of the Republic of Armenia, as well as a special prize at the Galina Vishnevskaya International Opera Singers Competition in Moscow. He has participated in the YAVA Houston Grand Opera programme (Houston, 2014) and also took part in the master classes of Montserrat Caballé (Yerevan, 2014).
He made his debut on the stage of the Philharmonic with its orchestra led by conductor Eduard Topchjan where he sang the part of Rodolfo in the opera La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini. In 2015, he sang the part of Stepanos Shaumian in the opera David Bek by Armen Tigranian in Britten Theatre in London. In 2016, he made his debut on the stage of the Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet named after Alexander Spendiaryan in the role of a Young Gypsy in Rachmaninoff's Aleko. In the same 2016, accompanied by the Philharmonic orchestra led by Maestro Edward Topchjan, Tigran performed Requiem by A. Dvorak, dedicated to the Armenian Genocide; he also took part in the concert on the occasion of Pope Francis’s visit to Yerevan. In December 2015, he became the soloist of the Youth Opera program of the Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet named after Alexander Spendiaryan.
Kriss Russman graduated with honors from the Royal College of Music in London and Cambridge University, where he received his doctorate in music. He is a student of a Hungarian teacher and conductor Béla de Csilléry, and of Bartók Jr. and Zoltan Kodály.
Kriss Russman’s conducting engagements include Tosca with the Hungarian State Opera and the Krakow Opera, Madama Butterfly and Cosi fan tutte with the Prague State Opera, Rigoletto with Kiev National Opera and Belgrade National Theatre, La Traviata and I Pagliacci with the Latvian National Opera and La Boheme with Ulan Bator Mongolian State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
Kriss Russman is also known as a composer: commissioned by Volkstheater Rostock in Germany in 2013, Maestro Russman presented his opera Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Last year, he recorded his completion of the Orchestral Fantasia by British composer George Butterworth, who was killed in the 1st World War, on a CD of Butterworth’s music for BIS Records. He has also recorded the music of Pēteris Vasks with the Riga Philharmonic Orchestra for SONY’s RCA Red Seal label.
Maestro has also collaborated with the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Colonne in Paris, Nuremburg Symphony and Augsburg Philharmonic orchestras in Germany, Athens Symphony Orchestra, St Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra in Sweden.
In season 2017/2018 Maestro Russman will debut in the following productions: the opera The Rake's Progress by Igor Stravinsky at the State Opera Istanbul, the opera Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi with the National Theatre of Sarajevo, Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini with Macedonian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Carmen by Georges Bizet with Opera Brașov in Brașov and the State Theatre of Košice (Slovakia) with Die Fledermaus by I. Strauss. On 11 February Maestro Kriss Russman will conduct at the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus: the music of Verdi's drama about the dark jester Rigoletto will play under the wave of his baton.
The lead parts in the opera will be performed by Vladimir Petrov (Rigoletto), Tatiana Gavrilova (Gilda), Andrey Valentiy (Sparafucile), Kriskentia Stasenko (Maddalena), Vasily Kovalchuk (Count Monterone).
