Quick Facts
Biography
Svetlana Davidovna Kasyan (Russian: Светлана Давидовна Касьян, born 24 July 1984) is a Russian operatic soprano.
Early life and training
Svetlana Kasyan was born 24 July 1984 in Batumi, Georgian SSR, USSR. In 1993 she moved from Batumi to Aktobe, where she studied at school number 26.
After in 2006 she entered the music college. Then she studied at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory in the class of Galina Pisarenko. She also perfected vocal technique with Dmitry Vdovin and in Washington with Placido Domingo.
From 2009 to 2011 - member of the youth program of the Bolshoi Theatre.
Career
In 2010 she debuted on the Bolshoi Theatre stage in the Kupava party in “The Snow Maiden” opera by Rimsky-Korsakov, and later performed there in “The Love for Three Oranges” by S. Prokofiev and “The Enchantress” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
In 2011 she graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with a degree in solo singing.
In the same year, she won the first prize of the Fifth International Vocal Competition in Ningbo City.
In 2011, she performed the title role in the opera Tosca by Giacomo Puccini at the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater, and in the same year at the Bolshoi Theatre. Journalists called her "the most promising voice of the world".
In Italy, she debuted in 2011 at Bari in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. In 2013, she sang the part of Queen Elizabeth in the opera “Don Carlos” at the Teatro Regio in Turin. The opera was shown by the Italian TV channel RAI.
On November 12, 2013, she gave a solo concert in Rome in the Auditorium Conciliazione hall, organized under the auspices of the President of Italy and the Pontifical Council for Culture. On the same day, she received a personal audience with Pope Francis, who during the audience devoted her voice to God, taking from Svetlana a promise to sing only for God and to propagate goodness.
In the anniversary issue of the men's magazine “Maxim” in April 2017, she starred in an erotic photo shoot to “attract the attention of the public to the opera art”. At the same time, the commercial radio station Europa Plus called the singer "the leading star in the world in sound quality."
In October 2017, she was rewarded by the second audience of Pope Francis after her debut at the Rome Opera in Tosca.