Danielian, Aikanush
Danielian, Aikanush Bagdasarovna
Born Dec. 3 (15), 1893, in Tbilisi; died Apr. 19, 1958, in Yerevan. Armenian Soviet lyric coloratura soprano. People’s Artist of the USSR (1939). Member of the CPSU from 1941.
In 1920, Danielian graduated from the Petrograd Conservatory from the class of N. A. Iretskaia. From 1922 to 1932 she was a soloist at the Theater of Opera and Ballet in Tbilisi, and from 1933 to 1948 she was a soloist in Yerevan. Between 1943 and 1951 she taught at the Yerevan Conservatory (as a professor from 1949). Danielian possessed an unusually beautiful voice and a vivid artistic individuality. Her best roles included the title role in Tigranian’s Anush, Olimpiia in Chukhadzhian’sArshak II, Marfa in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, Antonida in Glinka’s Ivan Susanin, and Marguerite de Valois in Meyerbeer’s The Huguenots. She was also a concert singer. A deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, she received the State Prize of the USSR in 1946. Danielian was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.