Russia’s Perm Opera and Ballet Theater Announces Next Music Director

Migran Agadzhanyan succeeds Russian conductor Artem Abashev in the chief conductor position at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater.

This news follows the theater company’s recent announcement of their 2022-23 concert season. One of the productions to be directed by Agadzhanyan in the upcoming season includes the premiere of “Un Ballo in Maschera” by Roman Feodori.

Agadzhanyan had conducted the Perm Opera orchestra before in January 2022, making his debut with the ensemble with Puccini’s “La bohème.”

A conductor, singer, and pianist, Agadzhanyan was born in 1992 and “is one of the most talented Russian musicians of the younger generation,” according to a Facebook post by the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater.

He has been a guest solo singer with the Mariinsky Theater since 2017 and his accolades include prizes at the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition, 26th World Opera Competition Operalia, 3rd Ilya Musin All-Russian Young Symphony Orchestra Conductors’ Open Competition, and the 8th Elena Obraztsova International Competition of Young Opera Singers.

The same year he made his Mariinsky Theater debut in 2012, he also founded the St. Petersburg Youth Symphony Orchestra, which he tours with to the cities of Russia and Europe. 

He studied singing with Vladimir Eknadiosov, a teacher at the Rostov State Rachmaninoff Conservatoire, and also trained at Rome’s National Academy of Santa Cecilia where his voice teachers were Renata Scotto and Giuseppe Sabbatini. 

In 2016, he graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory as a pianist studying under Vladimir Mischouk and as a conductor studying with Vladimir Altschuler.

“The musical director of the Perm Opera should be a young but already quite experienced conductor who specializes primarily in the operatic repertoire and is actively involved in the life of the world music scene,” said Dovlet Anzarokov, general director of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater said in the press release.

“Migran Agadzhanyan, with whom I have collaborated from the very beginning of his career, fully corresponds to this definition. The chief conductor of the theater has to combine the solution of artistic and administrative tasks, therefore, an important role in his appointment was the managerial qualities of Mihran Aghajanyan, who at the age of 19 organized a completely new creative team from scratch and successfully manages it to this day.

An interview in Music Life by Aya Makarova with Agadzhanyan on his music journey and new role at Perm Opera, can be read here.