Two brilliant young artists of the international opera scene, Aigul Akhmetsina and Long Long will appear in a joint aria and song recital at the Opera House on 22 March 2026. The evening features performers already celebrated in leading roles on the major opera stages of New York, London and Berlin, with Jonathan Papp accompanying them on the piano.
After making her debut at the age of just 21 as Carmen at the Royal Opera House in London, Aigul Akhmetsina’s career has continued to rise steadily to the forefront of the international opera scene. Audiences at the Metropolitan Opera in New York also became acquainted with her in this signature role in 2023, which she performed to great acclaim last year at the Arena di Verona, in Madrid and Munich. At Lincoln Center she also gave a memorable performance as Rosina in productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia, and in 2026 she will debut in the female title role of Samson et Dalilah, a part she has previously performed in London and Berlin.
At her Budapest recital, Akhmetsina will offer selections from these major roles, while also recalling Charlotte from Werther and Olga from Eugene Onegin, with which she has won significant acclaim in London, Berlin, and San Francisco. In the second half of the evening she will lead the audience into the world of Russian art song, revealing a more intimate side of her artistry through works by composers including Rachmaninoff and Rimsky-Korsakov.
The artist, who was named Best Female Singer at the 2023 International Opera Awards and whose solo album has been released by Decca, is not unknown to Hungarian audiences either: in 2024 she achieved great success on the stage of the Opera House at the 20th anniversary gala of the Georg Solti Academy.
Her partner for the evening will be Long Long, another remarkable young talent of the international opera world. This season the Chinese tenor made his debut as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, a role he also regularly performs at the Semperoper in Dresden. In his programme Long Long also revisits other important milestones of his career: the evening will include an aria from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, in whose male title role he appeared last year at the Staatsoper Berlin, as well as an excerpt from the role of Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, which audiences at the Deutsche Oper Berlin have heard him perform. In the second half of the concert the young tenor will also select from his wide French and Italian song repertoire; alongside works by Tosti, Massenet and Leoncavallo, he will also enrich the programme with a Chinese folk song.
The two outstanding young singers will be accompanied on the piano by Jonathan Papp. The musician of Hungarian descent is an internationally recognised répétiteur and piano accompanist, founder and artistic director of the Georg Solti Academy in Italy, and principal coach for opera and vocal repertoire at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Photos by He Ping, Andrei Uspensky, Marco Borrelli
