Young Russian mezzo bids for breakout stardom in Met's new 'Carmen'

Aigul Akhmetshina says she’s a fighter — and she’s had to be to make it to the Metropolitan Opera, where she leads a new production of Bizet’s “Carmen” opening on New Year’s Eve

NEW YORK -- Aigul Akhmetshina likes to describe herself as “just an ordinary girl from a small village in the middle of nowhere in Russia.”

Not quite.

Akhmetshina started performing folk songs of her native Bashkortostan while still a toddler. Her family couldn’t afford a piano, so her first instrument was a button accordion. At 14, she left home to study singing in Ufa, the nearest large city more than 100 miles away, where she supported herself at odd jobs like handing out flyers while walking on stilts.

Now 27, this “ordinary girl” is taking on one of the highest-profile operatic assignments imaginable: Headlining a new production of Bizet’s ever-popular masterpiece “Carmen” at the Metropolitan Opera opening on New Year’s Eve.

It hasn’t been an easy journey from Ufa to New York. Along the way, Akhmetshina has had to overcome multiple setbacks, including failures in vocal competitions, an auto accident that left her unable to sing for months, then staking her hopes on a trip to Moscow only to be told by a conservatory that she wasn’t good enough for a scholarship.