An Evening of Armenian Songs and Opera in South Milwaukee

By David Luhrssen

On Saturday October 8, two Armenian opera singers, tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan and mezzo-soprano Victoria Avetisyan, gave a concert at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center. The event was sponsored by St. John the Baptist Armenian Church, Milwaukee, as part of its observation of Armenian Culture Month. The married couple, who met at the Komitas State Conservatory, Armenia’s premiere music school, performed a selection of Armenian songs, opera excerpts and other numbers.

The couple have enjoyed a distinguished career after coming to America. Manucharyan sings with the Metropolitan Opera and Avetisyan with the Boston Opera. The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall are only a few of the many venues where they have performed in the U.S. At their South Milwaukee concert, they sang solo and together. Especially haunting among the Armenian selections were their interpretations of the traditional songs “Sari Aghchik” (“Girl of the Mountain”) and “Arakadz Partser Sarin” (“At the Peak of Mount Arakadz”). Avetisyan displayed great empathy for the words of Charles Aznavour’s “Ave Maria.”

Together they communicated powerful emotions through the strength of their voices, whether singing recent Armenian pop songs, Puccini’s “Nessum dorma” (from Turandot) or Verdi’s “Libiamo” (from La Traviata). They also performed a potpourri of other tunes, including “Cinema Paradiso” by the acclaimed Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.

Manucharyan and Avetisyan were accompanied throughout by recorded music, which often served to frame their renditions in a contemporary context. The surprise of the evening came when St. John’s pastor, Rev. Fr. Guregh Humbardzumyan, joined Manucharyan onstage for a rousing version of Constantine Bedrossyan’s “Hayasdan” (“Armenia”).

The concert’s location was significant. As St. John’s parish council chairman Lyle Dadian mentioned in his introduction, South Milwaukee was one of the earliest places of immigration for Armenians coming to America. By 1900, the Milwaukee suburb was home to Armenian refugees from the first wave of Ottoman persecutions.

On Sunday, October 9, Manucharyan and Avetisyan joined the choir of St. John and sang the choir parts of the Badarak, emphasizing the suspense, drama, spirituality and joy inherent in Armenian liturgical music.