Hasmik Papian
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Hasmik Papian (Armenian: Հասմիկ Պապյան; born 1961 in Yerevan) is an Armenian soprano.
She graduated from High Academy in Yerevan first as a violinist, then as a singer. After her debut at the Armenian National Opera, she was invited as a soloist among others by Opera Bonn and Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, Germany. Soon, she started an international career and has since appeared at numerous theaters, including the most prestigious operatic stages and concert houses in the world like The Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall New York, San Francisco Opera, La Scala of Milan, Opéra Bastille in Paris, London Wigmore Hall, the Vienna State Opera, as well as the state operas of Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin.
Her repertoire ranges from Mozart's Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Rossini's Mathilde (William Tell), Halévy's Rachel (La Juive) and Bizet's Micaëla (Carmen), passing by Puccini's Mimì (La Bohème), Magda (La Rondine), Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Boito's Margareta/ Elena (Mefistofele) to Tchaikovsky's Lisa (The Queen of Spades). It contains twelve Verdi-roles: La Traviata, Desdemona (Otello), Aida, Leonora (Il Trovatore and La forza del destino), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Elena (I vespri siciliani), Amelia (Simon Boccanegra), Elvira (Ernani), Abigaille (Nabucco), Odabella (Attila) as well as the Requiem. A central part for her is Bellini's Norma; she has appeared in this role among others at Vienna Volksoper, at the Regio of Turin, in Montreal, Baltimore, Detroit, Denver and Washington DC, at Opéra de Marseille, at the festivals Chorégies d'Orange (South of France) and Luglio Trapanese (Sicily), in Mannheim, Stuttgart, St. Gallen, Rotterdam and at De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam. The Amsterdam production has been released on DVD in October 2006.
Hasmik Papian has appeared in most European countries, in Israel, Japan, Chile, as well as Canada and the United States where she is invited regularly. She has performed with many notable conductors – such as Riccardo Muti, Valery Gergiev, Georges Prêtre, Michel Plasson, Marcello Viotti, Maurizio Arena, Myung-Whun Chung, Gennadi Roshdestvensky, Plácido Domingo, Leonard Slatkin and James Conlon. She is also very active promoting the music of fellow Armenian composers such as Komitas Vardapet, Yeranian, Kanatchian, Tchoukhadjian, Avet Terterian and Tigranian in her recitals. In 2006, a SACD with 36 songs of Komitas has been released, including some nine songs on German poetry recorded here for the first time ever. In 2004, she was honored with the title of the "People's Artist" of the Republic of Armenia. In 2005, she was awarded the Order of Saint Sahag-Saint Mashtots from the hands of Catholicos Garegin II of Armenia at the Holy Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Echmiadzin, for her role as a "cultural ambassador of Armenia throughout the world". Hasmik Papian lives in Vienna, Austria.
