A graduate of the St. Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire and of the Bolshoi Young Artist Programme, Elene Gvritishvili is joining the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Opera Studio in 24/25 season. The young soprano has already successfully performed at the Salzburg Festspielhaus and Mozarteum, the Bolshoi Theatre, Philharmonic halls in Moscow and St. Petersburg and other renowned venues.
A graduate of the St. Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire and of the Bolshoi Young Artist Programme, Elene Gvritishvili is joining the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Opera Studio in 24/25 season. The young soprano has already successfully performed at the Salzburg Festspielhaus and Mozarteum, the Bolshoi Theatre, Philharmonic halls in Moscow and St. Petersburg and other renowned venues.
In 24/25, as a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Opera Studio, Elene Gvritishvili appears in the revivals of La Cenerentola as Clorinda and Don Carlo as Tebaldo. She also joins the Staatsoper cast in the new productions of Káťa Kabanová by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Krzysztof Warlikowski as Fekluša as well as Pénélope by Susanna Mälkki and Andrea Breth as Une Suivante. Other roles in Munich include Voice of the High Priestess in Aida, Dama di Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Echo V in Hänsel und Gretel and Chocholka in The Cunning Little Vixen.
Elene Gvritishvili opens her concert season in Moscow where she performs Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 14 at the Rassvet concert hall and a solo concert at the Zaryadye Chamber Hall presenting a baroque program with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. In Moscow she can also be heard at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall as Pamina in the concert performance of the Magic Flute and The Creation oratorio by Haydn under the baton of Philipp Chizhevsky, as well as in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. At the Chamber Music Hall of the Berliner Philharmonie Elene takes part in a benefit concert of the Gute Tat Foundation with Bavarian Chamber Orchestra Bad Brückenau under the baton of Johannes Moesus. Apart from that, Elene tours South Germany with the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Opera Studio and performs a recital at Künstlerhaus in Munich joined by bass Paweł Horodyski.
Elene Gvritishvili’s 23/24 season was filled with exciting events. Most notably, the highly anticipated CD “Silent Songs” that Elene recorded with the pianist Alexey Pudinov was released in September 2023 under the label Kaleidos Musikeditionen. A captivating rendition of Valentin Silvestrov’s song collection, it is the first recording of this cycle with a female singing voice. Elene and Alexey performed Silent Songs at various locations: Berlin Piano Insel, Bonn Trinitatis Kirche and Frankfurt Bechstein Centrum. Elene was a member of the Bolshoi Young Artists Program and participated in the program’s events. Some of her engagements included performing Symphony No. 4 by Mahler with Fedor Lednev at GES-2 in Moscow, showcasing Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen and Ilia in Mozart´s Idomeneo at the Tchaikovsky Hall with Philipp Chizhevsky, singing the part of Tebaldo in Don Carlo and Brigitta in Iolanta at the Bolshoi Theatre. The highlight of Elene’s season was her role and house debut as Natasha Rostova in the new production of War and Peace at the Novaya Opera in Moscow where she also performed Missa in tempore belli and Bruckner’s Mass No. 3. 23/24 season was also marked by Bach’s St Matthew Passion in St. Petersburg’s Philharmonic and in Moscow’s Zaryadye Hall under the baton of Teodor Currentzis, and later in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall with maestro Philipp Chizhevsky. The finishing chord of the season was Elene’s role debut as Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Diaghilev Festival.
Remarkable moments of the previous seasons include Elene’s performances at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall where she sang Requiem (Mozart) with maestro Bashmet and Requiem (Donizetti) with maestro Korchak. On the opera stage, Elene sang Papagena and the First Lady in Mozart´s Magic Flute at the Winter Theater in Sochi and as Tebaldo in Don Carlo at the Bolshoi Theatre. She also performed Mozart´s Great Mass in C minor at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory under the baton of Teodor Currentzis.
Elene and maestro Currentzis have had a fruitful collaboration over the past several years: from 2020 to 2022, Elene worked as a soloist of the musicAeterna choir under his direction. With the maestro she performed solo parts in Requiem (Faure) at Dom Radio in Saint Petersburg, Orf’s De temporum fine comoedia at the Diaghilev Festival and the Salzburg Festival where Elene also appeared as the First Witch in Dido and Aeneas in 2022.
In the 21-22 season, Elene performed solo parts in Carissimi’s Jephte at the Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Saint Petersburg as well as Bach’s St John Passion and Mozart´s Exsultate, jubilate at the St. Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire. She could also be heard in Requiem (Schnittke) at the Mozarteum Salzburg under the baton of maestro Gregor A. Mayrhofer.
Elene has had the privilege of participating in world and Russian premieres of works by esteemed contemporary composers such as Alexey Retinsky, Philip Grange, Paul Archbold, Andreas Moustoukis, Alexander Manotskov among others. She also enjoys performing Renaissance and Baroque music, collaborating with authentic ensembles at various venues across St. Petersburg and Moscow.
© CSAM, July 2024
