Top soprano: Why I have moved to Vienna
OperaThe Lithuanian-born singer Asmik Grigorian is opting for mid-life change.
She tells Kurier:
KURIER: With Elisabetta you are once again making your debut in a major role, and you have had a lot of these recently. How do you actually cope with that?
Asmik Grigorian: I don’t know! I do and do and do, and sometimes I stop and think: How did I actually manage that? I feel like I’ve reached a limit in my life, or rather: I’ve planted a garden for 20 years that is now bearing a lot of fruit. But instead of harvesting it, I keep planting. It’s time to re-plan my life, because it’s become difficult for me.
In what way?
AG: It’s so much! I’m starting to lose a bit of interest in the things I do. That’s a signal that something needs to change! Because I always want to give 100 percent of myself, to the audience, to myself and to art. I still feel the joy in the things I do. But I’m putting pressure on myself and I need to change a few things.
When singers are “hot”, they invariably overload their schedule. As she is smart enough to recognize. The agents are usually part of the problem as well. Much harm can follow.
A bad agent tries to get his performer as many as concerts as possible since his percentage of the fee will be his income.
When will all the clueless fans blaming agents for overbooked artists get it that no agent can force an artist to sing. We want to milk them as long as posisble not kill them in the process. It is always the singer who wants more work to make more money. Seriously people. Spend one day in an agency and you’ll stop talking nonsense.
Isn’t she married to an Austrian?
No. Her husband is Russian
No, she’s actually twice divorced and not married to the Russian director anymore.
Nope, they’re divorced
She better start learning German, then the Viennese dialect. Netrebko is one of those (wrongly) granted Austrian citizenship without first having the minimum requirement that everyone else must have: Fluency in German. Well, that plus her questionable associations with we know who.
But there is much sympathy for Russia and Putin in Austria. Hence the chance that the ultra-right party wins these days, a pro-Russian, anti-climate-chance bunch of nitwits.
If she knows ENGLISH she’ll do fine in Vienna!
That extract from Kurier does not say why she has ‘moved to Vienna’. It doesn’t even say that she has moved there. All it says that she is playing a role there.
Does that mean that everybody who appears at the Staatsoper has moved to Vienna?
I once worked in Vienna for three weeks. I stayed in a hotel there, but I certainly didn’t move there.
I had a look at the Kurier website, but was unable to go further than the opening couple of paras, as the rest of the article was behind a paywall.
If anybody has a Kurier subscription, perhaps they could tell me more about her move. Is she renting an apartment, or has she bought a property? If the latter, where did she buy the furniture? Does she have a favourite cafe or restaurant? What is her favourite coffee? Is she a Wiener Melange girl, or does she prefer Einspänner? Or even a Großer Brauner?
So much is being withheld from us.
She has stated in multiple interviews that she has moved to Vienna from Vilnius, so just because you didn’t know it, doesn’t make it untrue.
Hey, The Economist keeps naming Vienna the most (or sometimes second-most) livable city in the world, so …
It’s not because she likes high taxes and nasty people?