STAGES Episode 526: ARAX MANSOURIAN

STAGES with Peter Eyers

Arax Mansourian is one of the superstars of the Armenian Opera and classical music. She started her career in her native Armenia and continued in Australia with Opera Australia. Her beautiful voice and unique timbre, as well as her iconic beauty and regal stage presence, are unforgettable.

Arax was born in Beirut, Lebanon in a family of survivors of the Armenian genocide. Her family moved to Armenia when Arax was still an infant. Growing up in Armenia, music was a very important part of her life and she knew early on that she wanted to sing.

Arax studied at the Romanos Meliqyan College of Music and later graduated from the Yerevan State Komitas Conservatory, where she was the only performer of modern classical atonal music by young composers. During her studies she participated in festivals throughout Russia and The Soviet Union. After graduation, she started to sing at the Yerevan State Opera and became one of its biggest stars.

Her repertoire encompasses more than 30 roles which include Verdi's- Aida, Leonora in La Forza del Destino, Desdemona in Othello, Elizabeth Valois in Don Carlos, Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, Leonora in Il Trovatore, Amelia in Un Ballo Di Maschera , Liu in Puccini's Turandot, Mimi in La Boheme, Tosca in Tosca , Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Elizabeth in Tannhäuser, Kundri in Parsifal, Katya in Janacek's Katya Kabanova, Kostelnichka in Janacek's Jenufa, Fata Morgana in Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, Anoush in Tigranian's Anoush and Shoushan in Tigranian's David Bek.

Arax’s recordings of medieval Armenian chants are an important part of the treasure vault of Armenian music. In the1990's, during a liturgical festival, she toured 14 cities in France with an all male Armenian choir.

She has had recitals throughout the world singing the music of European Masters, such as Schubert, Schuman, Mahler, Mozart, Fauré, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Rachmaninoff while always including Armenian classics by Komitas, Kanachian, Berberian and her brother, composer Tigran Mansurian, in her repertoire. Arax is the first performer to sing many never before performed songs by Komitas, as well as his unfinished opera Anoush.

After moving to Australia in the mid-nineties, she started her work with Opera Australia. Her first role with OA was of Liu in Turandot, followed by Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana in Melbourne (OA), Sydney Opera House (OA) and Brisbane for Opera Queensland. She also performed Tosca in Tosca (Opera Queensland), Desdemona in Othello (Opera Australia), Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos, Katya in Katya Kabanova (OA Sydney), and Fata Morgana in Love for Three Oranges (OA Sydney).

Arax Mansourian has appeared in concerts with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony" at the Sydney Opera Concert Hall, Verdi "Requiem", Britten's "War Requiem", a series of concerts singing Hildegard von Bingen music, ABC "Swoon Concert" with Sydney Symphony Orchestra, John Haddock's "See My Children Fly" which the author wrote with Arax Mansourian in mind. As well as singing in Australia , Arax Mansourian has performed concerts in the USA, China, Egypt, Lebanon , Armenia and Japan.

In 2015 she was awarded with the First Degree Medal of Armenia. In 2010 Arax was Awarded with the Medal of Komitas by the Ministry Of the Diaspora.

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