Asmik Grigorian came out last night carrying her computer tablet (if I saw right). And I had to smile. In America, a union member would have to do that. Otherwise, there would be big trouble.
On Grigorian’s tablet was her sheet music. She is a soprano from Lithuania, and she gave a recital in the House for Mozart at the Salzburg Festival. Her program was all-Rachmaninoff: fifteen Rachmaninoff songs (which people often refer to as “romances”).
Rachmaninoff is known as a piano composer, of course. He himself was a pianist, and one of the greatest who ever lived. But he was also a fine symphonist. And he had a great lyric gift. If he had concentrated on songs, he would be known as a great song composer.
He is one anyway, I think.
Asmik Grigorian is a star here at the Salzburg Festival—a star of opera. She has stood out, for example, in the role of Salome (in the Strauss opera). This summer, she is singing Lady Macbeth (in the Verdi opera). I will discuss Macbeth in my forthcoming chronicle for the print magazine.
Grigorian is the daughter of two singers. Her brother Vartan is a conductor. Maestro Grigorian is not to be confused with the late Vartan Gregorian, the Armenian-American educator (president of Brown University, president of the New York Public Library, president of the Carnegie Corporation).
At the piano last night was Lukas Geniušas, born and educated in Moscow. He is the son of two pianists, and the grandson of another. The bio published in our program booklet says that he won the Chopin Competition in 2010. Other sources say that he finished tied for second. There must be some confusion.
In any case, he is a worthy pianist, and competitions can be a little frivolous.
You know who placed third in the Chopin in 2010? Daniil Trifonov, one of the leading pianists in the world today.
Asmik Grigorian is a formidable singer—in technique, in voice, and in musical intelligence. She gave her heart to the Rachmaninoff songs, but also her head. She could be relatively cool. But then, so can the songs. She was not a wallower. But neither did she stint on emotion.
She produces a steady stream of sound. She can sing loud—very loud; high and loud; penetratingly loud—without stridency. Without any stridency at all. Mind you, stridency may come later. But it has not arrived yet.
After Grigorian had sung four songs, Geniušas sat down for three solo pieces. All of a sudden, the voice recital was a piano recital. This was slightly strange, but there are no hard-and-fast rules.
Geniušas played three pieces that Rachmaninoff himself played—that he, in fact, recorded. First came the composer’s transcription of his song “Daisies.” Then came his transcription of a hopak (a Ukrainian folk dance) by Mussorgsky. Third came his transcription of Rimsky-Korsakov’s winner The Flight of the Bumblebee.
Mr. Geniušas was skillful and effective in his playing. He would do some more solo playing before the recital was over. And there was too great a contrast, in my opinion, between his solo playing and his collaborative playing.
With Grigorian, he tended to be modest to a fault. Wrongly self-effacing. Even mousy. Many of the accompaniments—if I may use that controversial word—needed more personality, more assertiveness.
One of the songs in Grigorian’s second set was the one we know in English as “In the Silence of the Secret Night.” It ends (for the singer) on a long, upward, beautiful line. Some singers take a breath during this line, which is permissible. Some do it in one. Grigorian did it in one—but the tempo was quite fast, and overly so, I think.
I thought of Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the late baritone. He took that line slow—luxuriatingly, almost boastfully slow—in one breath. Renée Fleming once told me in an interview, “We all think he has a third lung.”
Asmik Grigorian did any number of impressive things. I will spend a minute on one of them.
It is relatively easy to sing soft high notes when you have lower notes to push off from. When you have a “platform.” But what if you have no platform? No lower notes to push off from? What if your soft high note is “freestanding”? Not easy at all. And Grigorian handled these notes superbly.
When the “piano recital” returned, Lukas Geniušas played two Rachmaninoff preludes: the one in G-sharp minor and the one in D-flat major. This second prelude is hymn-like, religioso. Geniušas played it with due breadth and feeling.
Once Grigorian had sung the last song on the program, the audience wanted more, naturally—and she gave them two. Two more songs. These were by Tchaikovsky. Should she have departed from the evening’s composer, Rachmaninoff? Regardless, she did, to no harmful effect.
Grigorian is a great singing actress. I have seen enough of her in opera to know that. She reminds me of Hildegard Behrens and Teresa Stratas. She is also, simply, one of the best singers of our time. And I hope she sings recital after recital, in addition to role after role.
Let me append a footnote—something odd. I want to make a sartorial note. Bear with me.
Grigorian dressed almost demurely. She wore a black dress, nothing fancy, nothing flashy. She is a beautiful woman. She does not need to gild the lily. I thought there was something almost pre-modern in the way she dressed. She was happy to let the singing do the talking.