Moscow is set to welcome a dazzling concert by renowned soprano Hibla Gerzmava, a plan disclosed by representatives from the Moscow Nights concert agency. The event is shaping up to be a defining moment in the city’s cultural calendar, drawing opera lovers and music enthusiasts from across Russia and beyond. Gerzmava’s appearance at this special recital underscores her status as a premier voice of the contemporary opera world, celebrated for both technical mastery and expressive depth. The announcement signals a carefully curated program that promises to blend operatic grandeur with lighter, rhythm-driven textures that appeal to a broad audience in North America watching international tours as well.
The concert is scheduled for June 20, 2023, and will unfold at the historic State Kremlin Palace, a venue known for its architectural magnificence and excellent acoustics. The program, titled United in Sound: Opera. Jazz. Movie Soundtrack, invites listeners on a carefully crafted journey through some of the most cherished works in world opera, alongside jazz standards and iconic tunes from cinema. The pairing of classical and contemporary sources aims to showcase the versatility of Gerzmava’s voice, enabling a dialogue between centuries and genres that resonates with today’s diverse concert-going public, including audiences in Canada and the United States who follow major European premieres and festival-linked performances remotely or via archival broadcasts.
Joining Gerzmava on stage will be an esteemed roster of performers: Larisa Dolina, Igor Golovatenko, Mariam Merabova, Alexei Chumakov, and Alexander Panayotov. They will perform with the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra, lending their distinctive voices to a program that blends operatic bravura with collaborative, chamber-like sections where soloists interact with orchestral color in intimate moments. Conducting the affair will be Anton Grishanin, a conductor whose experience with Russian music and modern concert staging is well regarded by critics and audiences alike. Together, this ensemble aims to deliver a night that balances the operatic classics with cross-genre moments that highlight the expressive potential of the performers and the orchestra alike.
Hibla Gerzmava stands among the most sought-after singers of her generation. Her career has taken her to the world’s most prestigious opera houses, where she captivates audiences with a voice that blends lyrical warmth with remarkable firmness in the upper register. She has graced the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, the Paris National Opera, Arena di Verona, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the Mariinsky Theatre, among others, earning critical acclaim for performances that combine technical precision with vivid storytelling. Her international engagements have helped bring northern and southern European repertories to life for diverse audiences, and her command of Russian, Italian, and French repertoires makes her a versatile interpretive force on large stages and in intimate recitals alike.
Gerzmava’s appearance in Moscow follows a previous event she participated in that celebrated Slavic literature and culture, a concert in which the repertoire drew from Russian folk songs, Orthodox hymns, and excerpts from beloved opera and symphonic works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. That prior engagement showcased her ability to fuse national musical heritage with broader classical traditions, a quality she brings to the Kremlin Palace engagement as well. The upcoming concert continues this thread by offering listeners an expansive musical panorama that honors iconic operatic moments while also inviting discovery of lesser-known gems and cross-genre pieces that reflect contemporary concert programming in major cultural capitals across North America and Europe, making it a compelling watch for fans who follow cross-border cultural events and study how European ensembles connect with audiences in North America.