Varduhi Abrahamyan Mezzo-soprano

Biography

Varduhi Abrahamyan was born into a family of musicians and studied at the Yerevan Conservatory. She has appeared in numerous productions at the Paris Opera including L’Italiana in Algeri (Isabella), L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Ottone), Giulio Cesare (Cornelia), The Queen of Spades (Pauline), Rigoletto (Maddalena), Eugene Onegin (Olga), Falstaff (Mrs Quickly), Un ballo in maschera (Ulrica), the title role in Carmen, the world premiere production of Bruno Mantovani’s Akhmatova (Lydia Chukovskya) and La Forza del destino (Preziosilla). Her repertoire of roles also includes Malcolm (La Donna del lago) at the Theater an der Wien, the title role in Carmen in Toulon, Néris (Cherubini’s Médée) at the Théâtre des Champs‑Élysées, Arsace (Semiramide) at the Montpellier Opera, Nerestano (Bellini’s Zaira) at the Radio-France Festival in Montpellier, Pauline (The Queen of Spades) and Bersi (Andrea Chénier) at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. She also sang L’Amour sorcier at the Théâtre du Châtelet with Marc Minkowski conducting, Orfeo (Orfeo ed Euridice) in Versailles, Marseille and Saint-Etienne, Polinesso (Ariodante) at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, and Bradamante (Alcina) in Zurich alongside Cecilia Bartoli. More recently she sang the roles of Ascanio (Benvenuto Cellini) at the Rome Opera, Dalila (Samson et Dalila) at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia (where she made her debut in 2015 in Norma and Nabucco), Carmen at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, the Hamburg Staatsoper, Palermo’s Teatro Massimo and in Atlanta and Hong-Kong; Arsace at the Marseille Opera, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow and the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Polinesso (Ariodante) in Toronto, La Donna del lago (Malcolm) at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Bradamante at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Eugene Onegin at the Canadian Opera Company, and La Donna del lago in concert at the Marseille Opera. She also made her debut appearance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in L’Italiana in Algeri and sang the role of Eboli in Don Carlo in Las Palmas. During the 2019-2020 season, she sang the role of Maffio Orsini (Lucrezia Borgia) at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo and the Sydney Opera. She also played Carmen at Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, Venice’s La Fenice, Turin’s Teatro Regio and the Zurich Opera, and Arsace at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Varduhi Abrahamyan also performs in concert (Verdi’s Requiem, the Stabat Maters of Rossini, Dvořák and Pergolesi, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder) under the direction of Myung‑Whun Chung, Nicola Luisotti, Jesús Lopez‑Cobos, and Jakub Hruša.