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Karine Ohanyan, mezzo soprano video: Donizetti: O mio Fernando (La Favorita) also on Youtube Offenbach: Vois sur l'archet frémissant (Les contes d’Hoffmann) also on Youtube Bizet: Seguidille (Carmen) (with Stuart Skelton) also on Youtube Bizet: scene from act 2 of Carmen (with Stuart Skelton) Bizet: finale of Carmen (with Keith Ikaia-Purdy) also on Youtube Humperdinck: excerpts (act 1 & 2) from Hänsel und Gretel (with Maria Bengtsson) audio: Tchaikovsky: aria of Paulina (Pikovaya Dama) Bizet: air des cartes (Carmen) Karine Ohanyan, of Armenian origin, was born in 1971 in Istanbul. Her family emigrated with her to France (Nice) when she was 10 years old. It was there she had her first encounter with music, studying singing at the Conservatory of Music with the late Eliane Manchet Médecin, who quickly discovered her exceptional talent. She graduated from the Nice Conservatory of Music in 1994 with honours. After smaller solo-engagements at the Opera House of Nice, she became a member of the singing ensemble at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, where she stayed until the year 2000. It was during this period that she was fortunate enough to work with conductors such as L. Foster, L. Hager, G. Carella or S. Bychkov singing, amongst others, Fidalma in Il matrimonio segreto, Giacinta in La finta semplice, Teresa in La Sonnambula, Carmen, Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Marguerite in La Dame Blanche. Her years at the Opéra-Comique also included lengthy tours across France, where she performed in many other opera houses (such as Vichy, Avignon, Reims and St Etienne), as well as singing many concerts and recitals. Concurrently to her fixed assignment she was also invited as a guest to houses such as the Opera House in Rennes singing Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. In the season 1999-2000, she was invited by the Vienna Volksoper to sing Carmen, and her success prompted the artistic director to offer her a fixed contract. There she stayed until the year 2003 appearing in numerous roles, ranging from Carmen to Mrs. Meg Page in Falstaff, Frau Reich in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hermia in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hänsel in Hänsel and Gretel. In September 2003 she became freelance and has assignments to sing in various houses including the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf (Germany) Carmen, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Olga in Eugene Onegin and Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann. She sang Olga at the Opera house in Bonn; La Périchole directed by Helmut Lohner at the Opera house in Graz (Austria), Carmen at the Opera house in Leipzig under the baton of C. Schnitzler; Floßhilde in Götterdämmerung and Rheingold and Grimgerde in Die Walküre at the Royal Opera of Wallonie in Liège (Belgium); Paulina in The Queen of Spades at the Flanders Opera in Antwerp and Ghent; Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus at the Opera house in Massy (France), Fenena in Nabucco at the Arena of Bayonne, Carmen for her debut with the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, at the Slovenian National Opera in Maribor, at the Latvian National Opera in Riga and at the Bolshoï Theatre in Moscow. During the summer of 2008 she sang de Falla’s L’amor brujo at the State Theatre Braunschweig open air operatic concerts with the Koblenz Philharmonic Orchestra in Wiesbaden (with Michael Spyres and Craig Smith) and with the State Theatre Karlsruhe in Saarbrücken and Karlsruhe with tenor Keith Ikaia-Purdy. In May 2009 she will be Carmen in a revival of the production in Maribor, and in September 2009 she will be singing the title role in a new production of Carmen in Braunschweig, conducted by Alexander Joel. April 2009 |