Stella Grigorian, mezzo-soprano, was born Armenian in Tbilisi, Georgia. While studying French and Spanish, she also pursued piano and opera singing at the local music academy. She continued her studies at the Conservatory in Vienna, where she was awarded the prestigious Karajan Scholarship.
Her first engagement brought her directly as a soloist to the Vienna State Opera, where she was a member of the ensemble for ten years. During this time, she performed leading roles such as Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Despina (Così fan tutte), and many other Mozart and Rossini roles, alongside Edita Gruberova, Leo Nucci, Plácido Domingo, Agnes Baltsa, Renato Bruson, Anna Netrebko, Elīna Garanča, among others, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, Christian Thielemann, Fabio Luisi, Frederic Chaslin, Jun Märkl, Roger Norrington, Marcello Viotti, Philippe Jordan, Bertrand de Billy, Marco Armiliato, Franz Welser-Möst, and others.
She made her debut at the Frankfurt Opera as Nerone in Handel’s Agrippina, and remained closely associated with the house as a soloist, performing roles such as Sesto (La clemenza di Tito, dir. Christoph Loy), Cenerentola, Polina (Pique Dame), Medea (Cavalli’s Giasone), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Melibea (Il viaggio a Reims), Fenena (Nabucco), and Siebel (Faust).
Her signature role, Carmen, has been performed in Tokyo under Yutaka Sado, in Copenhagen in a production by David McVicar, and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. She has appeared on many of the world’s leading opera stages, including the Salzburg Festival in Die tote Stadt under Donald Runnicles, directed by Willy Decker, at the Bregenz Festival under Kirill Petrenko (Mahler 2), in Katja Kabanova, Il Trittico at the Theater an der Wien, and as Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) in Lyon.
Under Zubin Mehta, she performed Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus, Berlin State Opera), Falstaff, Otello with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv. She sang Gertrud (Hamlet) at the Theater an der Wien under Marc Minkowski, and in Lausanne under Fabien Gabel. Le nozze di Figaro under Riccardo Muti and Seiji Ozawa at the Vienna State Opera and in Tokyo. Further roles include Santuzza, Dalila, Amneris, Jezibaba, Giulietta, Charlotte, Adalgisa, Giovanna Seymour, and Verdi Requiem.
She has performed alongside Natalie Dessay in Paris, at the Verbier Festival, and in South America. Several CD recordings document her song repertoire, including collaborations with the distinguished accompanist Helmut Deutsch.
The French chanson has become particularly dear to her. Whenever possible, she organizes chanson
evenings alongside her classical repertoire, such as La Bohème, homages to Charles Aznavour and Édith Piaf, in venues including Theater im Park, Theater Akzent, Porgy & Bess, the Reichenau Festival, Landestheater Linz, and the Vienna Konzerthaus, often with Karl Markovics, Bela Koreny, and a jazz ensemble.
In recent years, she has also devoted herself to tango, performing internationally with Gustavo Beytelmann, composer and pianist, an Argentine collaborator of Astor Piazzolla.