By Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
WARSAW — “Incredible Lusine Arakelyan gave a great New Year’s concert at the Warsaw concert hall in front of 1,200 guests. Her beautiful voice and great musical experience are unforgettable. The audience gave her several standing ovations. The orchestra conductor also praised her voice and performance.” This is how singer and music critic Kristina Sulzichka put it in a review of the event.
Not only in Warsaw, the country’s capital, but in six other cities, music lovers had the opportunity to hear this truly incredible Armenian soprano sing. The special holiday season tour took her to Pszczyna (Pless), Tarnow, Lublin, Znin, Gdynia and Czarna, from just before Christmas to the end of January. Invited by AVIP production, whose conductor is Wojciech (Woytek) Mrozek, she performed with several orchestras, among them the INSO chamber orchestra, the Philharmonic symphony orchestra of Lublin, both from Poland, and with the Ternopil philharmonic and the Lomagos band, both from Ukraine. In addition, there were two mixed Polish-Ukrainian orchestras.
Although soprano Lusine Arakelyan is just embarking on a promising career, her repertoire is already vast, and challenging. During her tour, she sang arias from Verdi’s La Traviata, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Kalman’s Silvia, as well as Gypsy Love and Giuditta by Lehár. Performing with so many orchestras gave her the opportunity to sing with different soloists, among them the Leon Voci four tenors from Ukraine, soprano Natalia Prisich from the Ternopil philharmonic, famous mezzosoprano Agata Sava, Warsaw opera tenor Leshek Swidinski and Maryan Mario Lomaha, a “fantastic violinist” (in Lusine’s words) from Ukraine. Not only singers but also ballet dancers from the Lvov opera and ballet theatre (Ukraine) were part of the program.
From Gyumri to Berlin
Arakelyan comes from Gyumri, the cultural capital of Armenia. She completed her studies at the Octet music school there, before continuing her studies in Yerevan. In 2008 she began her activity as a soloist at the Ghazaros Sarayan Opera studio at the conservatory in Yerevan.