Death of Armenag Shahmuradian (September 14, 1939)

Opera singer Armenag Shahmouradian, labeled “the Armenian Caruso,” was one of the most famous representatives of the musical current embodied by Gomidas Vartabed.



He was born in Mush on April 7, 1878 in the family of a blacksmith. He entered the church choir at the age of eight, while he continued studying at the local school. However, the death of his father interrupted his studies due to lack of resources. The intervention of Bishop Nerses Kharakhanian, prelate of Mush, was providential. He sent the young boy to study at the seminary of the famous convent of Surp Garabed. The new student could not adapt himself to the atmosphere of the convent and returned to Mush pretty soon. This time, the bishop sent him to Echmiadzin with a letter of recommendation. The future singer was admitted to the Kevorkian Seminary, where he had writers Avetik Isahakian and Derenik Demirjian, and musician Grigor Suny among his classmates.

Shahmouradian became soloist in the choir of noted composer Kristapor Kara-Murza, who was a music teacher at the seminary. His extraordinary voice and highly qualified interpretation attracted the attention of Kara-Murza’s replacement, the young Gomidas Vartabed, who took the youngster under his wings. Shahmuradian developed as a singer and musician under Gomidas’ supervision for the next year and a half.

However, he was soon expelled from the seminary for having participated in a student protest against the conservative and retrograde methods applied there. Thanks to the intervention of Catholicos Mgrdich I (Khrimian Hayrig), Western Armenian students like Shahmouradian were admitted to the Nersesian Lyceum in Tiflis to continue their studies. There, he attracted the attention of Makar Ekmalian, the music teacher. He graduated in 1896 and participated in a wave of protests in Tiflis against the savagery of the regime of Abdul Hamid in the Ottoman Empire. He was arrested by the Russian police, sent to the prison of Metekh, and then, as an Ottoman subject, delivered to the Turkish government. He remained in the prison of Kars for eight months. His voice went through the walls of the prison and reached Turkish consul Fuad bey, who sent him to Mush as a free exile.

After two years teaching at the seminary of Surp Garabed, Shahmouradian moved to Erzerum, where he taught music, Armenian language, and Armenian history for four years at the local school, where he also created and directed a choir. Through the intervention of the school authorities, he obtained a Lebanese passport with the pretext of going there for medical reasons. However, he embarked on a French ship and went to Paris instead of Beirut in 1904. In the French capital, he studied for two years with world-famous singer Paulina Viardot, and afterwards he entered the Conservatory of Paris.

In January 1911 Shahmouradian debuted at the Grand Opera of Paris with the role of Faust in Charles Gounod’s homonymous opera. The performance was so successful that, at the request of the press and music aficionados, it continued for a month. In 1912-1913 he toured in Cairo, Tiflis, Constantinople, Baku, and other cities with a repertory of Armenian traditional and popular songs. He moved to the United States in 1914, where he gave concerts in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, and Fresno, and later performed in Europe (London, Manchester, Brussels, Antwerp, Geneva, Zurich) and Asia (Tehran, Baghdad, Calcutta). He recorded many of his songs in 78 rpm records that became a fixture in Armenian homes around the world.

In 1930 Shahmouradian, in precarious health and equally precarious finances, returned to Europe and settled in Paris. Here, he went to see his great master, Gomidas, who was already at the psychiatric clinic of Villejuif. He sang Armenia, Paradise Land (Հայաստան, երկիր դրախտավայր), one of his classical interpretations, and for a few moments Gomidas reacted and recognized his beloved disciple. And that was all.

Like his teacher, Shahmouradian, who had earned the label of “nightingale of Daron,” also passed away in the clinic of Villejuif on September 14, 1939. William Saroyan, who devoted a poem to him, four decades later wrote in Obituaries : “Shah-Mouradian was one of the truly great tenor-baritones of all time, somewhat like John McCormack, a star in Paris and New York, and around the world in opera.”