Theatre Weekly has been lucky enough to grab an interview with the very talented Anush Hovhannisyan.
Tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
I am an opera singer based in London. Originally I am from Armenia – the homeland of the best hospitality and apricots in the world (scientifically proven!). I moved to UK in 2010, graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and worked at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as a Jette Parker Young artist.
How did you become such a successful singer?
I was born under a very lucky star! But also, I guess, the genes are to blame on. I was born into a musical family. My father is a stage director, professor at the Yerevan State Conservatory in Armenia, the head of the Opera department and runs the Opera Studio. I was exposed to the classical music since early days and spent 10 years in a professional music school as a viola player, before I started training as a singer. I live and breathe on the stage, it gives me enormous pleasure to sing and interact with others on the stage. I am a great believer at getting great results if you do the job with a joy. This will be the case.
You’re representing your native Armenia in the BBC Cardiff Singer of The World Competition, how does that make you feel?
It was an honour and a joy to be representing my home country at such a prestigious competition. I was delighted to be a part of it, and the thrill got even bigger when I got to perform an excerpt from a recently found opera Sardanapalo by Franz Liszt. That was a truly historical event and an immense honour. Later on, I was astonished by the amount of the messages from Armenia. They are all very proud of me and I am pleased and grateful to the BBC for providing such great international exposure both on my participation and the world premiere of the Liszt piece.
Tell us about the New Generation Festival you are performing at in Florence?
This festival is a cherished dream by all of us involved. We all are friends and all are burning with the love toward the classical music and opera. We are a great team of young professionals, who are driven, ambitious and full of passion. We all have gone through an impressive training at world class art institutions and dedicated our life to the joy of making art and bringing delightful moments to other people’s lives. We have a message for the world and were lucky to have each other to create this new platform, not only for us, but also for other likeminded young artists. We are very lucky to have great army of believers standing behind the festival, who are looking forward to hearing/watching us coming together under the NGF label for the first time this summer. This is going to be the hit of the season and is not to be missed!
What is your dream performance, the one you’d most like to do?
My dream is to share my love of music-making with audiences, infect people with the joy of music-making, make connections with audiences in every corner of our beautiful world and give them the chance to experience the same emotions that I do. I dream of sharing this universal language of music with as many people as I can, and it is already happening! … Perhaps performing one of my favourite roles at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro might give me a buzz too!
Finally, what would you say to any budding singers out there, who would like to do what you do?
I would say that it is essential to remember why do we do what we do and keep the joy of it. The journey can be and will be hard, but only the love, passion, inspiration and true devotion will make it work. The other important thing is to be creative and encourage creativity around us.
