(Photo: Beata Nykiel)

Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina is universally hailed as one of the most exciting opera singers in a generation. Called “The New Netrebko” by renowned critic David Mellor, she is the “Carmen du Jour” and is in demand by opera houses around the world. She sings with a rare, coloratura mezzo voice. A luminary of the Jette Parker Young Artists Program, she debuted at just 21-years-old at the Royal Opera House in the role of Carmen before going on to debut at many of the famous opera houses of Europe. She is the recipient of multiple awards and nominations, and was just nominated for the 2025 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for her performance as Carmen in the 2024 production.

OperaWire caught up with Aigul at the Royal Ballet and Opera where she was rehearsing for a revival of Damiano Michieletto’s “Carmen,” both during and after which she received wide, huge acclaim.

OperaWire:
Hello Aigul, thank you for speaking with me. First off, congratulations on your Olivier Award nomination. You’ve been nominated for your Royal Ballet and Opera performance of “Carmen,” which of course you are currently back in rehearsals for today.

Aigul Akhmetshina:
Thank you. Yes, The awards are on 6th of April. It’s one of the awards which I really want to achieve at least once in my life.

OW:
You have sung many performances of Carmen worldwide now. It has become your signature role. Do you ever feel you have exhausted the character or are there still new facets to her that you want to explore and portray?

AA:
Oh, there’s a lot to do with this role. Just even literally this weekend I was relearning some stuff in Carmen, for example, and learning new things. This is a different cast and when you have a different cast, it’s a different energy. We have actually a wonderful cast here. We have Freddie De Tommaso as Don José, Łukasz Goliński sings Escamillo, and there’s a wonderful singer, Yaritza Véliz, with whom I was with in the Jette Parker Young Artists Program, and she has such a beautiful voice. She sings Micaëla and we have other singers from the Young Artist Program, and they are all so good. So, we have such a completely different energy.
And of course, Maestro Mark Elder is so specific. He is like, (how to say correctly), like he is so picky even with each note, and we are looking into the music during the rehearsal with so much detail right inside of the music. And sometimes, especially in ensembles, he asked us to sing very slowly and build the harmonies and to tune each of our voices, one after another, so that we produce a clear chord. Until we achieve that, he will not allow us to progress, we’re not moving. And it can sometimes be irritating especially when we are used to this role, after singing it so many times.

And yet, at the same time we need help to find new details, new colors in the music. And that is what he offers, I actually have never worked so hard on this music and the things we discovered with him. Can you imagine? I have sung already 13 productions of “Carmen,” and some of the productions I repeated, and we just realized that in the “Seguidilla” aria, there’s a single note which I have been singing wrong all the time and nobody ever noticed. But Mark noticed!

And now for me to relearn that is so hard and it’s a very tiny note. And I even listened to other recordings of other artists, and I could hear that they don’t do that note either. It means everyone just skipped it! So, there’s just this one note, but Mark really wants me to do it and now it’s also my inner perfectionist is really like, okay, I’m accepting that challenge, I will try to do it. So, now I’m every day trying to relearn that line. And actually, I feel like if I’m going to sing that I think lots of people will hear it for the first time. (Laughing) Because I think nobody is singing that note, because nobody noticed. It’s a small change from A flat to A natural, it’s just that! He’s also slightly changing some rhythmical structure or intentions. He is very precise about copying the way how it’s written, no left or right, and in some ways it’s cool because it disciplines us. Even in some ensembles where especially when you sing with a chorus, often the principal singers will mime, as soon as the chorus starts singing, we try to mime it or don’t sing it full voice, just to have a little rest. A lot of singers do that in big ensembles. Here, Maestro always asked us to sing. We had to really dive into that line and we spent more time in creating the music in ensembles and it was very interesting. I really find different colors, different ideas and intentions and I hope musically, this time, Carmen will be more developed and grown, I would say. Hopefully we’ll find something different from all my past Carmens.

And of course, intentions and energy between the characters is also different. The storytelling, for example with Freddie, (José), he’s very passionate. It means I need to go beyond myself to make him feel uncomfortable, I need to be so powerful. He’s a big guy who is very secure and to make him feel uncomfortable I need to be more. It’s like I have to be a bigger Carmen than I was before. And it really challenges me. This version at the moment, despite the fact that I have done this production before, the energy is different. It asks a lot of challenges. I performed previously with Piotr Beczała and I love him dearly. He is such a wonderful soul. But it’s kind of easier to intimidate him in this role because he is very experienced and respectful.

Freddie is still, like very young, he just goes with his feeling. He’s like a, for me sometimes he’s like a little child and I just like to poke him and see how he responds, I just like to find the buttons? That probably sounds wrong, but he is such a nice guy. We are the same generation artists, I work with him a lot, we have known each other for a long time, and we are good friends. For that reason, yeah, it’s very comfortable for us to work together. It means we don’t have that feeling of, oh, something is uncomfortable. We’re just doing it, we feel safe. And that’s the important part, to feel, especially in rehearsal period or on stage, when you feel safe with your partners. And you know that you can do it. We have a nice, nice team.

OW:
When we last spoke, you were doing “Werther,” and you said to me that it was “imperfect” and that you weren’t happy because your French wasn’t very good at that time. Do you feel you have a better grasp of the language now?

AA:
Oh, I’m still fighting with my French. I hope it’s better. I hope it’s better because every time I sing French repertoire, and I do a lot of French repertoire, every time I work with my language coach, Sonia or Florence, we always try to improve the language. Every time I have to clean up, like literally now, I just got notes from today’s session of rehearsal. Every time she writes down the words or if I said something unclear or the intention wasn’t right. And after I come back home I do my homework. I have a look and try to adjust and fix some stuff. It’s an eternal work, I would say. You never stop. Otherwise, as soon as you stop, what’s the point of doing it? Because there’s always room for improvement.

OW:
You also said, last time we spoke: “I’ve been working non-stop for a while without any break, but now slowly, slowly I’m learning to prioritize quality over quantity and to take care of myself. I try to plan my schedule with some gaps to rest, which I learned the hard way after getting sick three times in less than two months.”
I think every time I’ve spoken to you over the months, you’ve been suffering from some illness, so are you taking as good care of yourself as you should?

AA:
(Laughing) THAT part I didn’t succeed yet, but I’m better. I promise I’m better! I mean I’ve started slowly taking care of myself, at least my physical state, I mean, without guilt I can take some time off. When I have a day off, I just lock myself at home, and I try to listen to myself and do what will recharge me, what is the best for me. In the end we are living in a very busy, busy world. Everyone is occupied and everyone is running around trying to survive, to do what they do, and the time is just flying so fast.
For me, in my head, I’m already preparing a year in advance. I know that, until Christmas, the time will fly. I will not notice summer. For me, the summer already doesn’t exist because I know that after London finishes, the very next day, early morning, I’m flying to New York. I perform “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” I come back to London in June to record my second album, I’m starting to work on my second album, and afterwards I have Paris, “Barbiere” again, Berlin “Werther” and after that, Arena de Verona with “Nabucco,” more “Carmen” and I finish my season, I think on 7th of September, and I start again after a couple of days.

OW:
That’s hectic. It must be difficult to maintain a relationship with a partner.

AA:
Well, I enjoy being single. This work, this job, this profession, doesn’t really allow to build a proper relationship. My life is difficult. And no man can accept this type of lifestyle. Because no one wants to see that their partner is constantly away. Not many men will accept that, and I’m kind of okay with it. If the time comes, it will come, but at the moment, also, I don’t see the rush to get married and have kids. If it will come, it will, because you cannot predict life, and if there’s something you don’t have in your life, I’m just okay with it. I have amazing friends surrounding me and now more or less I’m actually more happy when I’m traveling. I love my space and maybe that’s dangerous because I start loving my own space more and more.

OW:
You’ve been on stage since you were three years old. I know you struggled at times with being identified as “Aigul the singer” and not Aigul the person. In your own words, you said that it: “created a love-hate relationship with my own identity as a performer.”
Do you still sometimes feel that way?

AA:
Well, most of the time still my identity is the same. Like I’m the same person as Aigul or Aigul the singer. It exists together. And of course there are some people who are interested in me only because I’m a singer. And that’s also fine. I’m kind of more relaxed about it now. Because this is…every profession has its own price. And this is my price, my burden to carry. Because, well, it will happen and there’s still this Aigul the singer brought into my life amazing people whom I otherwise may not have met.
I wouldn’t have met my close friends who I met only here in London. It’s like this profession, my voice, gave me lots of… It’s like a blessing and curse. There’s a price to pay and at the same time it gives you amazing people around and amazing stories. It’s full of life and you’re constantly in that adventurous type of life. Often I don’t have time to even analyze what I have done. It’s just like turning the pages of a book but now the speed of reading is much faster and I don’t have time to process what I have done through the year. I don’t even remember anymore what I have done. I just go from one project to another. And once a year, usually for the birthday or for New Year’s, I try to go through my social media, my Instagram, and just go through and see what happened.
Because for me, my social media is my diary. I post things for myself, for my memory. That’s the reason why I don’t give my social media to anyone to control it. I do it myself, everything. And of course it’s now a full-time job. I do it only when I have time. But for me, it sends me reminders and it actually helps me sometimes to see that I’m progressing in the right direction because often I have a feeling like I haven’t done enough, that I could have done more. And I have so many ideas, so many collaborations I want to do, there’s so many plans and I feel like I’m in a rush.

OW:
Tell me about those; what are the most important plans for you in your future?

AA:
Well, sooner rather than later, I would love to really establish some organization to try to help other artists. Because I really care, I really feel and see that the art form in general, all the art forms all over the world are suffering right now. And we need to find a way how to fix it. And, for example, with the productions, we need to start creating a beautiful production. Because what’s happening, and I speak with lots of people, lots of young people, people of my generation, who want to come to opera, but they don’t want to come because they see some, very modern crap. What they see on social media doesn’t really inspire them to come because they see the same dress, like jeans, shorts, military costumes…..what they see on the TV every day. And most of the young generation haven’t seen any of the traditional productions. But then what I realized is that all of the generation who are the usual opera goers, who visit the theatre year after year, want to see something new. So, I think we need to find the right balance between creating something modern, and I’m not against modern productions, but they have to be of a high quality, with advanced technology, maybe, like balance it with the traditional. But modern doesn’t have to mean trashy, it still can be beautiful. With all the accessibility what we have now in the 21st century, with all this technology, we can achieve such realistic transformations on stage. But we don’t use it. Opera is not there yet. It is possible to find ways and to give more creativity, to find different ways of bringing people to the audience without destroying everything.

There are still lots of artists with whom I talk and everyone has interesting ideas and I’m really more involved now, more and more start getting involved with developing a way for the artists, for the quality art. Even if it’s a collaboration, I don’t mind, I would love to do some pop collaboration, rock collaboration, music collaboration with some musicians, with galleries, some painters. And then you combine visual art with music and it’s easier to accept, observe that information and maybe audiences who comes to the gallery will want to go to the opera and opera audience will want to go to the gallery. It’s like blending and crossing and it’s possible. I speak with lots of people about these things who actually can do something and slowly, slowly, I mean even just sharing the ideas and starting with a small project that gives a little development.
I don’t know, I’m just really concerned about art at the moment, what’s happening all over the world, and it’s really upsetting me. And sometimes it’s not really inspiring. I would say, young conductors who start conducting opera, but they don’t have experience of, let’s say, being a concertmeister, and then it’s harder to follow the singers. And we, as the singers, we are very unpredictable. It’s supposed to be graduate studying, like graduate development to any profession, because a conductor is supposed to be more educated than we are as singers. I always say, we as singers, like, instead of brains we have resonators, and that’s it. I need guidance to try to create something beautiful, because I don’t know how I’m sounding. When I sing, I don’t hear myself.

I love people who are so into what they do and they find, in a way, their own personality. This is about personality as an artist. You can be perfect at creating music but if you don’t have a personality and background, if you can’t properly tell a story, it’s very hard to create something different from others, something special even. And sometimes it’s hard even with directors. You arrive to a project and some directors have no idea what the story is about, and you have to create it, and that’s very draining. It’s not inspiring. And sometimes there’s projects like I recently did with David McVicar, “María Stuarda” in Teatro Real. It was such a safe environment, it was such a joyful process. I just missed that period. I was heartbroken when the project finished. I had such a great time there.

OW:
What about your singing plans? What would you like to sing that you haven’t sung yet?

AA:
Well, I really look forward to singing my first Delilah, one of these days. Also, I’m really looking forward to going back to Rosina now, (“Barber of Seville”) after “Carmen.” And actually, I really missed “Carmen.” Last time I sang her was in October in Naples. After which I had two new productions, one “Maria Stuarda” and “Norma” in Vienna, and I got to thinking… I was very curious about how this “Carmen” will be now. How do I feel? And of course, now I also feel different as a person. I’m in a better place and I’m growing as a human being and all the different roles which I have sung give you experience to grow as a musician, and as an artist. And I’m really curious as to how this “Carmen” now will have grown from last year.