Biographie
Anna Kasyan est considérée comme l'une des chanteuses les plus prometteuses de sa génération. Lauréate de plusieurs grands Concours Internationaux de Chant, elle a fait ses débuts sur différentes scènes prestigieuses et avec des chefs d'orchestre de grande renommée. Elle s'est affirmée dans un large répertoire d'opéra, de la musique sacrée à la musique de chambre, du baroque au contemporain.
J'ai découvert une très belle voix, celle d'Anna Kasyan, qui chante comme un ange. Sa prestation, splendide et éblouissante, accompagnée de beaucoup de style et de pianissimos sublimes, marquée d'une profonde intériorisation ainsi que d'une forte intensité d'interprétation, reste inoubliable... Étant présidente du Concours Julian Gayarre, j'ai créé pour la première fois un prix spécial portant mon nom pour exprimer ma reconnaissance de son talent. »
Teresa Berganza
Formation: de Tbilissi à Paris
Anna Kasyan commence très tôt sa formation musicale à l'Ecole pour enfants précoces de Tbilissi (République de Géorgie). Elle attire aussitôt l'attention du public : cette jeune musicienne participe à de nombreux récitals en tant que pianiste et violoniste ; à l'âge de huit ans, elle fait ses débuts comme soliste avec orchestre. Elle poursuit ses études au Conservatoire d'Etat de Tbilissi en classe de violon. C'est à cette époque qu'elle est attirée par le chant et à partir de 2001, Anna Kasyan passe en classe de chant dans le même établissement. Durant deux ans, elle se produit dans de nombreuses prestations. Elle interprète, entre autres rôles, Gilda (Rigoleto, Verdi), Carolina (Il matrimonio segreto, Cimarosa) et Norina (Don Pasquale, Donizetti) dans le cadre d'Atelier Lyrique du Conservatoire.
Piano, violon, chant et art scénique... Après avoir reçu cette éducation musicale complète à Tbilissi, Anna Kasyan s'installe à Paris en 2003. Elle intègre l'Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot. Boursière des Fondations Zygmunt Zaleski et Juan Beistegui, elle obtient trois diplômes supérieurs : Art Lyrique (2004), Exécution (2006) et Concertiste (2008). Anna Kasyan a vingt-deux ans lorsqu'elle est admise au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) en cycle de perfectionnement.
Durant ces années de formation, Anna Kasyan a travaillé les rôles de Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) et d'Armida (Rinaldo) chez Haendel, de Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) et de Despina (Cosi fan tutte) pour Mozart ; ainsi que Snegourotchka (La Fille des neiges, Rimski-Korsakov), Leïla (Les Pêcheurs de perles, Bizet), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette, Gounod), Adina (L'Elisir d'amore, Donizetti).
Parallèlement à ses études, elle suit les masters classes de Tom Krause, Raina Kabaivanska, Viorica Cortez, Janine Reiss et en musique baroque avec Jory Vinikour.
Debut…
Anna Kasyan’s repertoire reaches across various styles, periods, and languages. Her voice can be heard in Baroque or contemporary music, from opera to theater.
Anna Kasyan is among those musicians on whom hopes are founded in the domain of opera. She possesses all the qualities necessary for a grand international career: a voice of rare beauty with clear timbre, a firmness in her low notes and splendor in her high notes; a perfect technique which allows her to perform coloraturas with a light allure and to be sure to have a very nuanced phrasing; sublime musicality, desire to succeed, stunning charisma and great personality”.
Viorica Cortez
Opera
Anna Kasyan was a huge success when she incarnated Norina (Don Pasquale, Donizetti) at the San Marino Opera Theater (A. Ciavatta/ D. Uscello) in 2007. Several French opera houses have already entrusted her with the role of Zerlina (Don Giovanni, Mozart): Montpellier (H. Niquet/ J.P. Scarpitta) in 2008, Metz (J. Mercier/ N. Sadoul) and Rouen (G.-J. Rumstadt/ L. Laffargue) in 2009.
She performed her first Rosine (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini) in the festival “Opéra en Plain Air” in Paris and on tour in Ile-de-France (P. Hui/ J. Migenes). This show was selected by the French press in the category of “Best Opera Performance of the Season” for the third session of “Globes de Cristal des Arts et de la Culture” (2007, France).
Anna Kasyan, a Rosine who happily takes on and confronts the full range of the role. Julia Migenes’s mise en scène in the best opera bouffe tradition allows the opera singer to fully express Rosine’s joy and humor as well as her determination and will to succeed. The famous cavatina “Una voce poco fa,” amusing and full of mischief, shines and carries us away. One can’t help but be reminded of Maria Callas and Cecilia Bartoli.”
Le Figaro, July 2007
Recital and Concert
Anna Kasyan regularly performs in concert and in recitals around the world: at Carnegie Hall in New York as well as at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, at the Hermitage Theater and in the Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, at the Herkulsaal in Munich and at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, at the Flanders and Quebec Operas. She has also performed in Zurich, Liège, Osnabrück, Bale, Warsaw, Siena, Pampalona, Almaty, Pretoria, Madrid, Bruges…
However, France has not been forgotten by this adopted Parisian. She has performed in the series “Concerts de Midi” at the Salle Cortot, Concert Scarlatti-Haendel at UNESCO, Italian opera aria concerts at the Cité de la Musique and at the Russian Cultural Center in Paris, Mozart concerts in Toulouse, Baroque music concerts in different cities in the Ile de France region. She interpreted arias and duos of Italian-French operas at the Opéra Comédie and the Opéra Corum in Montpellier, the Théâtre Comédie des Champs-Élysées and at the Marigny Robert Hossein Theater in Paris.
Anna holds on to her roots and to her musical culture. Beautiful pages of Armenian, Georgian, and Russian music are very much present in her repertoire. She has recently given a recital to present this very repertoire at the Rouen Opera for the “Voix du Monde” series.
Anna Kasyan sings under the direction of famous conductors such as Placido Domingo, Kazuchi Ono, Daniele Callegari, Günter Neuhold, Alexandre Rudin, Michael Schonwandt, Michel Piquemal, Hervé Niquet, Stefan Klingele, Christoph Poppen, James Meena…
In concert, she was soloist in Stabat Mater by Pergolèse, Dixit Dominus by Haendel, Bach’s Magnificat en D, Die Schöpfung by Haydn, Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater by Rossini, Mozart’s Requiem, Symphonie op.52 Lobgesang by Mendelssohn, the concert scene Die Seejungfräulein by Albert, Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne.
Anna Kasyan has also performed with leading orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of the Opéra de la Monnaie, Quebec Opera Symphony Orchestra, the Romansch Switzerland Symphonic Orchestra, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the RTVE Orchestra in Madrid, the “Concert Spirituel “ Orchestra, the Flanders Opera Symphony Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Orchestra of Wallonia. She sang in Germany during a tour with the “German Radio Philharmonic” as well as in Belgium with the Baroque orchestra, “La Petite Bande,” and with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic.
Anna Kasyan has been invited by the Festival of the “Orangerie de Sceaux” and the Draguignan Summer Festival, the Pablo Casals Festival and the Tours Florilège Festival (France), the Mosan Summer Festival (Belgium), the Brescia Festival (Italy), the Saint Petersburg Olympus Musical Festival (Russia), the Radio France Festival for the production Don Giovanni (Zerlina) by the Musicora salon in Paris.
France Musique recorded programs with her participation: La Cour des Grands, Le Mardi idéal and Jeunes Interprètes. The Belgian television station RTBF invited her to its program 50 degrés Nord and the U.S. Russian television station "RTN" and SWR2 (Germany) list her in their documentaries.
In 2007, Eric de Belleval created a theatrical piece for Anna Kasyan: Contretemps, whose creation took place at the Salle Cortot in Paris that same year.
Future appearances…
Anna Kasyan has been invited to several events in France, notably for a recital at the 38th Saint-Lizier Festival, Concert “Malibran: the Life and Death of a Diva” at the Antibes ‘Musiques au Cœur’ Festival. She will leave on tour in Benelux with the Auvergne Orchestra, s.l.d. A.Van Beek, in a work by Haendel. She will also be in Germany with the Southwest German Philharmonic of Constance, under the direction of Vassilis Christopoulos, to interpret works by Mozart.
Anna Kasyan will sing the role of Egle in the production Niso, Egle and Eurilla, directed by Antonio Florio, at the Chaise-Dieu Festival. Spectators will have the opportunity to admire her in Carmen at the Toulon Opera, Cosi fan tutte at the Clermont-Ferrand Opera, the leading role in La Callisto by Cavalli at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva (Switzerland)…
Prizes and awards…
Anna Kasyan has received awards in the greatest international singing competitions. The stability of her victories and the number of special prizes she has received allow her to shine as one of the most promising and talented sopranos of her generation.
Recently, Anna Kasyan received the Grand Prize in the 3rd International Opera Competition of the 71st Strasbourg Music Festival, presided by Barbara Hendricks. At the beginning of 2009, she won the first edition of voice at the Vibrarte International Music Competition in Paris.
The first prize attributed to Anna Kasyan, breathtaking in dramatic strength as Lucrezia Borgia, as in Russian melodies where a powerful Tatiana appears, is indisputably deserved. The Georgian soprano has made incredible progress since her second prize at the Geneva Competition 2007, and has increased in clarity, delivery, and precision as well as in vocal range.”
Opera Magazine, March n°39, 2009.
In 2008, Anna Kasyan participated with great success in the Queen Elisabeth International Musical Competition in Belgium, where she was named First Soprano, laureate of Fourth Prize and the winner of the public award “CANVAS TV” (voted by the audience, Internet, TV and Radio).
In 2007 she won First Prize in the Rocca delle Macìe International Opera Competition, presided by Renato Bruson (Italy) and was deemed winner of Third Prize (the first non-attributed prize) at the 62nd Geneva Competition (Switzerland) as well as the Special Prize “Cercle du Grand Théâtre de Genève.
A year before that, she received First Prize and the Special Prize from Teresa Berganza at the Julian Gayarre International Singing Competition (Pampalona, Spain) as well as a contract from the Flanders Opera. That same year, Anna was the quadruple laureate at the 55th ARD International Music Competition (Munich, Germany), where she obtained 3rd Prize in the “Opera” category as well as the special prizes “Best Opera Singer,” the “Osnabruck Symphony Orchestra Prize” and “Best Mozart Repertoire Interpretation.” She also won the 5th Unisa International Musical Competition (Pretoria, South Africa) and special prizes “Best Interpretation of Baroque Music,” “Best Mozartean Repertoire,” and “Best Interpretation of Arias of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries.”
“The Women’s First Prize awarded to Anna Kasyan was indisputable and uncontested. From the first eliminations, she showed true professionalism in vocal line, theatrical expression, communication, phrasing, in interpretive richness of each fragment, rounded off in clear timbre, in the precision of each range – for example, in Norina (Don Pasquale) by Donizetti; in the intensity of recitatives, as in Weber’s Ännchen (Der Freischütz). And lastly, in her great musicality which plays a role in her undeniable vocal gifts. XI Concours International de Chant, Julian Gayarre, Diario, Spain, September 2006.
In 2005 she took First Prize in both the 17th Marmande International Competition and in the 20th National Opera Competition in Béziers, the Award of Honor at the European Music Competition in Picarie and at the Fall Music Festival (France). She is the first laureate of the first edition of the Renata Tebaldi International Competition (Second Place, first non-attributed prize) at the Republic of San Marino, as well as at the International Opera Competition in Marseille.
Anna Kasyan received the public award “Best Artist” at the Olympus Music Festival 2008 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
She was named Opera Revelation of the ADAMI for the year 2006 (France).
Anna Kasyan is the winner of Fondations de France de Meyer in 2005 and of Nadia and Lili Boulanger in 2007.
Anna's family…
Anna Kasyan was born in Tbilisi, in the Republic of Georgia, to a family of musicians. Her father, Ovanes Kasyan (Kassian), an established, well-known Georgian artist, was a famous interpreter of the clarinet and the doudouk. He played a very important role in the artistic development of the doudouk in Georgia and in the Caucasus. Ovanes Kasyan founded a school of doudouk in Tbilisi for young apprentices passionate about this art. He was also artistic director for the Sayat Nova Group. Under his conducting, the group participated in numerous cultural productions. This allowed for the development and the transmission of the work of the great achougue Sayat (Saïat) Nova, who was a troubadour born in the Caucasus, in Tiflis (ancient spelling of Tbilisi) at the beginning of the 18th century, and who wrote in three languages – Armenian, Georgian, and Turkish. Sayat Nova was killed by the army of Agha Mohammed Khan. Ovanes Kasyan’s life was also brutally ended - a strange coincidence with the life of another artist which he spent his life teaching others about… Anna’s mother, Lili Lasarev is a pianist and piano instructor. Anna Kasyan’s two older sisters are also musicians: Susanne is a musicologist and pianist; Ianna is a violinist and conductor.
From her early childhood, Anna Kasyan witnessed musical parties “at the Kasyans’” where one could often meet the celebrities of the time and hear both classic and folkloric repertoires.
