‘I always knew that my destiny was to perform on big stage. Once I get an idea into my head, I can be very determined! I won’t bang my head against the wall, but slowly, slowly, I will prevail. My way is to go step by step and it has worked for me so far. At the moment it feels like my career is taking off at great speed but if I want a long life on stage, I have to be sensible.’

The first time I saw Aigul Akhmetshina perform was not on a big stage. It was at Wilton’s Music Hall in December 2017, when Peter Katona, Director of Casting at the Royal Opera, invited me to see La Tragédie de Carmen, a reduced version of Bizet’s Carmen, performed by members of Covent Garden’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. And I was stunned!

Akhmetshina as Carmen at the Royal Opera House (photo: Bill Cooper)

For here was the only - and I mean, for me, the only ever – Carmen I had seen, (and I had seen all the great and famous ones of the past three decades) whose supposed irresistibility to the male sex I found genuinely convincing. On stage, quite close to the audience, was a sultry, unbelievably and effortlessly sensuous woman of, I imagined, around 35, who also sang thrillingly with a sensuous, velvety mezzo voice. But when I went back-stage I met a slim 20-year-old girl, exceedingly pretty but nothing as tall or mature as she had seemed on stage. Such is the power of a remarkable personality. It has the ability to augment and expand the physical presence. I found myself urging Peter Katona to put her on the main stage at Covent Garden asap! (Which happened the following season).

Now, six years later, the operatic world is about to become Akhmetshina’s oyster. After triumphant debuts late last year in San Francisco (Olga in Eugene Onegin) and the Metropolitan Opera (Maddalena in Rigoletto) Peter Gelb, the Met’s General Manager has given her ‘carte blanche’ to perform any role she wanted. ‘Aigul is an exceptional talent who will have an extraordinary platform at the Met, starting with our new production of Carmen directed by Carrie Cracknell and conducted by Daniele Rustioni that opens next New Year’s Eve.’

This exceptional artist’s unusual operatic journey began in Kirgiz-Miyaki, a village in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan. She was the youngest of three children. As her grandfather played the button-accordion, there was always music in the house. Even as a baby, her mother noticed that she instantly reacted and banged about when music was being played. As she was growing up it was obvious that the child had ‘some sort of ear’ and could repeat whatever she heard with exactly the same kind of voice. This was also noticed at Nursery school, where she started singing at concerts for Mother’s Day and other suchlike events. When she was six, having already been onstage many times, she announced to her mother that she wanted to go to a music school.

In Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Paris Opera (photo: Elisa Haberer)

‘But as they had no singing classes at the local music school, I had to study some instrument. I was very focused and wanted to study the piano. But we didn’t have one at home, instead, we had my grandfather’s button accordion. So, there I was, six years old, starting to learn how to play it. And I hated that instrument, because it was heavy and I had to carry it wrapped around my shoulders. Still, because I wanted to be a singer, I persevered, and in my second year the school decided to introduce singing classes.

During those years Aigul started entering Russian and international children’s singing competitions at some of which she won second and third prizes. ‘And although I had my share of rejections, I believe in competitions because they are a way to improve oneself. And by the time I reached 14, I decided to go to Ufa, our regional capital, to study singing.’

Aigul’s teacher in Ufa was Neilya Yusupova, a visionary to whom she owes not only her vocal technique but also fierce determination to pursue a career against all odds. ‘To start with, she worked to fix my technique. I was singing with my natural voice and using too much force, so by the time I came to Ufa my vocal muscles were tired. The college professors could hear the natural beauty in my voice and accepted me despite the fact that I was much too young. It was not plain sailing. Originally classified as a soprano, I struggled with high register and was getting tired quickly. When my teacher gradually started moving me onto the mezzo register, my voice began to settle and to flourish.’

Femme fatale: as Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Met, with Benjamin Bernheim as The Duke (photo: Curtis Brown)

At the end of the course Aigul decided to stay an extra year with her teacher. ‘I knew this was the right thing to do. I never dreamt of the international stage, my ambition was to sing in the Bolshoi one day. Of course, I feared I might not be good enough, after all, there are many talented singers in Russia. Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to find a voice teacher capable of refining and polishing a rough diamond until all its beauty is revealed.

‘My teacher is an amazing person. She believed in me more than I believed in myself and pushed me forward even when I was ready to give up.’

Akhmetshina acknowledges that becoming a successful singer is a very slow and uncertain process. ‘You work hard, you keep improving but, sadly, for many people this never pays off. It’s a big risk, a bit like playing Russian Roulette. You need talent, you need the will to work hard, but you also need luck. I would say that without luck it’s impossible to succeed. My good luck are the people in my life: my beloved mother, my wonderful teacher and others who accompany me on my journey’.

Aigul wasn’t planning to go to the competition in Moscow that was to change her life. A year before she tried to get a place at Gnesin Russian Academy of Music ‘because everybody was telling me I had to.’ But she was told she wasn’t good enough for a free course and would have to pay to attend, which she refused.

The competition in Moscow was where she met the second of the three key people in Akhmetshina’s career, Marcin Kopec, who eventually became her agent.

Aigul Akhmetshina (photo: Andrej Uspenski)

Fate had more miracles in store: The third person, the man who would turn this competition into a life changing experience, was David Gowland, Artistic Director of the Jette Perker Young Artists Programme at Covent Garden who invited Aigul to London to audition for the Programme. ‘There were 300 people from all over the world auditioning for five places! I got in! It was a miracle!’ David Gowland introduced her ‘to a lovely lady, Helena Bayliss, who is the Russian coach at Covent Garden. Her husband, parents and children accepted me as one of their own and became my London family. I still stay with them in Blackheath when I am in London.’ Not surprising: Aigul is an instantly likeable person whose spontaneity, charm and sunny disposition make her a joy to be with.

The programme was due to start in September and in the intervening summer Akhmetshina sang the title role in La Cenerentola at Opera de Bauge in France in order to gain some stage experience. She proceeded to win the Belvedere Competition and a few months later came La Tragédie de Carmen, mentioned earlier. ‘This was the first time I was singing in French and my first encounter with the heroine that was to play a crucial part in my career’.

‘Carmen is one of those characters you continue discovering all your life and every time you sing the role, you find something different. As I grow, I delve deeper into her essence. But right from the beginning I felt she was a very strong person who always fought for freedom. I can identify with that as I have to be free to create what I want and live as I please, without being told what to do. Carmen is a complex person. I don’t like portraying her as a sexy vamp playing with men. I want to know why she is doing this, what happened to her that made her the way she is. And every time I work with different directors, I try to find a new angle. Could she be tired of life? Is she forcing Don José to kill her because she is desperate? The magic of this role is that every night you discover a new Carmen you want to share with your audience.’

As Rosina, in the production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Royal Opera House (photo: Bill Cooper)

An important lesson she learnt from this role is that ‘freedom is inside ourselves. Everything is in our hands. Maybe Carmen is running away from herself because she cannot accept herself. This is why I think that every person can relate to this opera. All of us, at some stage of our lives, run away from ourselves. Freedom to be ourselves lies within us: it is so important to be who you are and to understand that being who you are is good enough…’

At the time of our conversations Akhmetshina was singing a comic role, that of Rosina. ‘She is fun, stubborn and very smart. She is trapped and she wants out, she wants freedom and she finds it in her love for Lindoro/Almaviva. She is smarter even than Figaro and adapts to every situation.’

Next June Akhmetshina will sing Charlotte in Werther at the ROH, one of her dream roles. ‘I love the music, I love the story and a chance to play a character who is a nice person! I hope I will do it justice as a dramatic actress.’ Yet in the next five years, she will sing all the high bel canto roles because ‘it’s healthy for my voice, while I have a wide range and vocal flexibility.’ Following ROH’s Barbiere she heads to Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, where she will sing Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda, a role she considers ideal for her at the moment, along with other Donizetti queens and Adalgisa in Bellini’s Norma, as well as Romeo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, her first ‘trouser role’ later on this year at the Salzburg Festival.

Aigul’s ‘big dream’ is to sing Dalila in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila in six years’ time. She would also like to come back to Dulcinée in Massenet’s Don Quichotte, which she sang with great success at the Wexford Festival.

After her initial success as Carmen at Covent Garden, Akhmetshina went on to sing at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Opéra de Paris, the Deutche Oper Berlin, Baden Baden Festival, San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera.

‘The stage is my safe place. Theatre is my natural habitat. The orchestra, the chorus, the costumes, the makeup, the backstage crew… Everything works like a huge, well-oiled machine which starts moving before the curtain goes up and stops a long time after it goes down. Lights dim, the stagehands clear up, costume ladies carry heavy dresses away, make up is removed, well-wishers wait outside our dressing rooms... The theatre is buzzing for a long time after the audience leaves… it is a kind of magic!’ 

This interview originally appeared in the March 2023 issue of Opera Now. Never miss an issue – subscribe today