The soprano Armenians call the nation's most heavenly voice — soloist of Etchmiadzin, definitive interpreter of Komitas, buried beside him at the Pantheon that bears his name.
Lusine Zakaryan (1937–1992) possessed what many Armenians consider the most heavenly voice the nation ever produced. A soprano of crystalline purity, she became the voice of Armenian sacred music — the singer whose renditions of Komitas and the medieval sharakan hymns defined how the 20th century heard its own soul.
Born in Akhaltsikhe, Georgia, and raised in Yerevan, she studied at the Komitas State Conservatory and became the soloist of the Holy See at Etchmiadzin, where her voice under the cathedral dome became a pilgrimage experience in itself. Recordings of her singing Krunk, Der Voghormia, and the songs of Komitas remain the reference performances half a century later.
Named a People's Artist of Armenia, she performed across the world for diaspora audiences who often wept at the first phrase. She died in Yerevan in 1992, and is buried at the Komitas Pantheon, near the composer whose music she served.
When Lusine sang under the domes of Etchmiadzin, Armenians said they heard what the stones had been waiting to hear.
— On the voice of Lusine ZakaryanZakaryan's recordings play in Armenian homes, churches, and memorials around the world to this day. For the generation that rebuilt Armenian identity after catastrophe, hers was the voice of consolation itself — the sound of survival made beautiful.
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