Author: Kanayan Tamar

LILI CHOOKASIAN, 90, CONTRALTO PRAISED FOR HER VELVETY VOICE
By MARGALIT FOX

New York Times

April 12 2012

Lili Chookasian, an American singer who in the 1960s and afterward
was among the most prominent contraltos in the world, died on Tuesday
at her home in Branford, Conn. She was 90.

Her family confirmed the death.

Ms. Chookasian was a principal singer with the Metropolitan Opera for
a quarter-century, appearing there 290 times from 1962 to 1986. She
also sang in recital and was a soloist with many of the world’s
leading orchestras.

Critics and operagoers hailed Ms. Chookasian as a “real contralto.”

Where many contraltos are endowed with the lightish, dusky equivalent
of a viola, her voice – immense, deep, velvety and burnished –
put a cello at her command. She was also praised for her sensitive
musicianship, powerful dramatic characterizations and impeccable
diction. (She had grown up speaking Armenian.)

Ms. Chookasian made her Met debut in 1962, at 40, in the role of La
Cieca in “La Gioconda,” by Ponchielli; the production also starred
Franco Corelli, Robert Merrill and Zinka Milanov.

She was perhaps most closely associated with the work of Gian Carlo
Menotti. At the Met, she sang the Maharanee in the United States
premiere of his opera “The Last Savage.” On loan from the company,
she made her New York City Opera debut in 1963 as Madame Flora,
the title character of his two-act opera “The Medium.”

Her other Met roles included Amneris in Verdi’s “Aida,” Erda in
Wagner’s “Rheingold” and “Siegfried” and Mamma Lucia in Mascagni’s
“Cavalleria Rusticana.”

As Mamma Lucia, she let her sly sense of humor spill, quietly, onto the
stage. As Opera News reported in its obituary this week, the soprano
Eileen Farrell once recounted what happened when she sang the part
of the beleaguered peasant girl Santuzza opposite Ms. Chookasian in
the 1960s.

On many a night, as Santuzza poured out her troubles to Mamma Lucia
in the impassioned aria “Voi lo Sapete” – about how the caddish hero
Turiddu has seduced and then traduced her – Ms. Chookasian would lean
across the table and whisper conspiratorially: “You’re kidding. … He
said that?”

The daughter of Armenian immigrants, Lillian Phoebe Chookasian was born
in Chicago on Aug. 1, 1921; her father was a machinist and toolmaker. A
gifted singer from girlhood on, she made her professional debut in
the 1940s as a soloist on the radio show “Hymns of All Churches,”
broadcast nationally on the Columbia network.

Ms. Chookasian began her career as a concert singer, making a notable
appearance in 1955 as a soloist in Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony
with the Chicago Symphony under Bruno Walter. She made her operatic
debut in 1959, as Adalgisa in Bellini’s “Norma” with the Arkansas State
Opera and later studied with the distinguished soprano Rosa Ponselle.

In 1961, Ms. Chookasian was chosen by the conductor Thomas Schippers
to appear with the New York Philharmonic in Prokofiev’s cantata
“Alexander Nevsky.” Her long solo, as a girl searching the battlefield
for the body of her lover, drew wide critical praise; her performance
is preserved in a Columbia recording.

If Ms. Chookasian arrived at the Met somewhat on the late side, there
was ample reason. Offered a contract with the company for the 1961
season, she demurred, saying she did not want to leave her husband
and three children.

She was by then also a two-time survivor of breast cancer, an illness
that, given the prevailing taboos of the era, she did not disclose
to her managers. The illness was first diagnosed in 1956, and Ms.

Chookasian was given six months to live. She underwent a mastectomy
that year and a second in 1961, after the cancer recurred.

As was widely reported, Ms. Chookasian, making her Met debut on March
9, 1962, sang so well that she received an immense ovation after her
aria “Voce di Donna.”

Her last performance with the Met was on May 17, 1986, as Gertrude
in Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette.”

After retiring from the opera stage, Ms. Chookasian spent many years
as a faculty member at the Yale School of Music. She had previously
taught at Northwestern University.

Ms. Chookasian’s husband, George Gavejian, whom she married in 1941,
died in 1987. She is survived by two sons, John and Paul; a daughter,
Valerie Klutch; 11 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

By all accounts, Ms. Chookasian was upstaged only once, in 1967,
while singing Madame Flora with the Cincinnati Opera. At the time,
the company performed at the Cincinnati Zoo, a setting fraught with
the potential for unintended consequences.

In one of the opera’s dramatic moments, Madame Flora, descending into
madness, fears there is a ghost in her room. “Who’s there?” she cries.

That night, as if on cue, a wandering peacock screamed back, “Meeee!”

At that point, Ms. Chookasian later said, she knew she had lost the
audience for good.

SYRIA’S MINORITIES UNITE AGAINST ASSAD

Deutsche Welle World
April 12, 2012 Thursday 5:34 AM EST
Germany

Syria’s minority groups, until now artificially divided, have united
against the Assad regime. If wisely managed, this provisional union
could lead to a lasting alliance.

Syria is a diverse country. Located on the border between the Arab
and Turkish cultures, the country has seen many different population
groups settle there over the millennia.

Most have been followers of Islam, a diverse religion that unites
them, but at the same time, also divides them. About three-quarters
of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, while about one tenth, including the
ruling Assad family, belong to the Shiite Alawites. And then there
are the religions linked to Islam, which include Druze, Ismailism,
Alevi and Twelver Shiitism, which together make up about 7 percent.

Along with the Muslims, there are also the Christians. They, too,
are a mixed group: Greek, Roman Catholic and Syrian Orthodox branches,
Maronites, Melkites, Armenian Apostolics and members of the Chaldean
Catholic Church. They make up about 15 percent of the roughly 21
million Syrians.

Aside from religious differences, there are also the ethnic minorities:
Kurds, Turkmen, Circassians and Armenians, among others.

In addition, the last few decades have seen roughly 600,000 Palestinian
and Iraqi refugees enter the country.

Interdenominational cooperation

Despite its many different communities, Syria is not a melting pot
in which the different groups mix to form a new national culture. But
at the same time it’s not a boiler threatening to explode with ethnic
and cultural pressure.

For a long time, says Syrian-born writer Rafik Shami, the various
minority groups didn’t have significant problems with each other or
the Sunni majority. Shami, a Christian who has lived in Germany for
40 years, recalls being unaware that a childhood friend was Muslim
for years.

“It was not necessary,” said Shami, “because we played together. We
didn’t need to know anything else.”

More was not necessary because the lines that separated Syrians at the
time were neither religious nor cultural. The population was divided
primarily on the basis of geographical and sociographic factors:
rural versus urban population, mountain inhabitants versus those
who lived in the desert or on the coast, nomads versus those with a
sedentary lifestyle. Some Syrians chose to live an open, metropolitan
lifestyle, while other preferred to keep to themselves. The individual
regions and cities were home to the wealthy and poor, educated and
uneducated classes.

All groups had their centers. The Alawites were especially drawn
to the mountain regions, as well as Homs and Hama. The Ismailis
traditionally lived in the mountains along the coast, while Greek
Orthodox and Greek Catholic Christians preferred Damascus, Latakia
and the adjacent coastal areas. The Kurds were predominantly located
in the Taurus Mountains and along the Syrian-Turkish border, and in
Hay al-Akrad, the so-called Kurdish neighborhood in Damascus.

Competing identities

Modern Syria was established in the wake of European colonialism.

Under Ottoman rule, the greater region of Bilad al-Sham comprised the
territories of present-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian
territories. Britain and France divided the region into provinces in
1918, from which emerged the states of today.

This reorganization also led to a cultural and, especially, a religious
divide among the previously peacefully coexisting populations. For
its local army, the Troupes Speciales du Levant, France recruited
mostly members of religious minorities, deliberately relying on a
tactic that set the minorities against the majority Sunni population.

This tactic, playing individual population groups against each other,
was carried over by President Hafiz al-Assad after his coup in 1970,
and continued by his son, today’s President Bashar al-Assad.

“Assad distributed favors and jobs to people who were loyal to him
and who were members of his own group, the Alawites,” said Shami. “In
this way he created a confessional regime, previously unknown to
the Syrians.”

At the same time, however, the Assad family also bound members of
other communities to itself, not least the Sunni business elite. The
privileges given to this group led many of them to place themselves
on the side of the Assad regime, once the riots against the president
began last year.

“Many Sunnis got rich at the expense of the rest of the population,”
said Shami. “This is why they stand by Assad. And they will only
break their connection to him once that link is no longer beneficial
for them.”

United by their opposition to Assad

But because so many Syrians have only known the authoritarian side
of the Assad regime, the resistance against the government of Bashar
al-Assad has been formed from members of all population groups,
according to said Ferhad Ahma, a member of the Syrian National Council.

“Regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliation, most Syrians want
democratic change,” said Ahma. This, however, does not mean that after
the long years of religious and ethnic differences, they have overcome
their mistrust of each other and especially of the Sunni majority.

“The minorities insist their rights will be clearly defined in the
future Syria,” said Ahma. “In this respect they are quite rightly
concerned, because they see that in some neighboring countries,
like Iraq and Turkey, the treatment of the smaller minority groups
is anything but optimal.”

Admittedly, many Alawites have also been afraid, says Shami, since
not all of them support the Assad regime. Therefore, he says, they
should not all be collectively accused or even pushed to openly
distance themselves from the government.

“The Alawites are careful. This must be respected,” said Shami. “Then
they talk openly, and prove whether they are a supporter of the regime
or not. But we should not constantly pull them in front of microphones
and ask them to give a statement against Assad, especially those who
live abroad. These Alawites have relatives still living in Syria,
hostages of the regime.”

A constitution for all population groups

For this reason, Syrians from every population group have been involved
in the resistance against Assad, says the SNC’s Ahma. Of course,
there are also concerns for the future. But the Syrian opposition
has made a good start toward solving these problems.

“Negotiations with minority representatives are now taking place,
in order to create clear concepts and theories and to anchor the role
of minorities and their rights in the constitution – and not only in
ordinary legislation – so that they have a guarantee for the future,”
said Ahma.

The Assad regime significantly contributed to the artificial fracturing
of the Syrian population. Now, through their common opposition to
the regime, these groups are once again coming together.

Right now they are provisional allies — a wise policy could ensure
they remain allies in the long run.

NATIONAL UNITY IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE FOR US: SERZH SARGSYAN

ARMENPRESS
APRIL 12, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, APRIL 12, ARMENPRESS: In foreseeable future Armenia will
be a legal state, without which it is impossible to live, President
of Armenia, Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Serzh
Sargsyan said during a meeting with residents of Malatia-Sebastia
administrative unit in frame of the election campaign, Armenpress
reports.

“We cannot have a higher police or economy without a legal state. Each
of us should be legally defended. Republican Party says – a better
Armenia for each of us,” stressed the president. He noted that their
requirement is the normal and high-paid work, development of the
small and medium-sized business.

“The state will cooperate with the private sector, bringing with it
new investments and up-to-date technologies. We have adopted a concept
of economic development and there will be no anti-competitiveness
activity,” Serzh Sargsyan said. He noted that social inequality remains
a concerning issue for the party and the state, for elimination of
which they will undertake opening of new working places.

The President said that the RPA considers all the spheres in one
integral system, as democracy, economy and high-quality state are
closely interlinked.

“A new term is necessary for successful accomplishment of the reforms,
as a result of which it will be possible to have a country more
attractive both for tourists and for us, for the Armenians who are
abroad and will return. National unity is a goal of utmost importance.

Much is conditioned by Armenia’s strength and attractiveness, beginning
from domestic issues up to foreign policy and peaceful settlement of
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict,” stressed Serzh Sargsyan.

THE MOTHER OF A MARCH 1 VICTIM IS DEPRIVED OF A RIGHT TO VOTE (VIDEO)
Arpine SIMONYAN

April 11, 2012 14:45

Alla Hovhannisyan, the mother of Tigran Khachatryan, one of the
victims of March 1, has not been included in the voting lists. Gayane
Arustamyan, a candidate for MP in no. 1 electoral district, thinks
it has been done on purpose. The candidate for MP spoke of that at
Lurer.com Club today.

After the press conference, Ms. Arustamyan went into detail during
a conversation with , “I really think that this has
been done on purpose, it is a disrespectful attitude, an element of
deepening the atmosphere of fear. I think it is a challenge to the
society and a deliberate offense to that parent. Alla Hovhannisyan
has stated lots of times that her son was killed by the establishment
and her vote is surely a vote against the regime and they try to
neutralize even that one vote.”

“Let the Smart Lamb Take One Mother’s Breast, but Let It Decide Who Its Mother Is,” About the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP)
Hripsime JEBEJYAN

April 11, 2012 15:55

Ruben Hakobyan, the Heritage Party deputy chairman, explained during a
conversation with why he necessarily demanded that Gagik
Tsarukyan signed the document on establishing a joint staff. According
to him, it will be clear by that in which camp the PAP worked. In
response to our question whether according to his logic, if Mr.

Tsarukyan signed, he would become an oppositionist, Ruben Hakobyan
said, “He will not become oppositionist, but after that we will offer
the mechanisms, which we specifically intend to use for holding a
free election – e.g., to establish a workgroup on examining facts of
election bribery and winning votes in various ways. Otherwise, we see
a signature that they want to hold a normal election, on one hand,
and they knock on the people’s doors and tell them to give their
passports, on the other.”

We tried to get clarification whether the Prosperous Armenia Party
was the one that had gathered passports in Gavar, Ruben Hakobyan,
stressing that he was responsible for his words, said that it had
been the PAP and the Republican Party, “They gather passports, return
them the next day and the Rule of Law Party (RLP) presents phones
and those jams in Vayots Dzor.”

In response to our observation what Vardan Oskanyan was doing there,
he said that there are political forces that use political technologies
to maneuver, “Admittedly, as the saying goes, the smart lamb takes 7
mothers’ breast, but they have taken so many mothers’ breasts for the
past 22 years – they have always stayed in power – that the state is
in this condition. We say let the smart lamb take one mother’s breast,
but let it decide who its mother is.”

TIGRAN SARGSYAN DEEMS MILITARY INDUSTRY SPHERE DEVELOPMENTS TO GUARANTEE SERIOUS IMPETUS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

ARMENPRESS
APRIL 12, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, APRIL 12, ARMENPRESS. Government of the Republic of Armenia
approved the program of military industry sphere reforms and events
stemming from development concept.

On April 12 Cabinet sitting Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan attached
great importance to the decision.” This may have great potential for
development of our economy. The implementation of these projects will
create serious grounds for the development of military industry.

Generally, we are stepping efforts to find the righteous path for the
development of Armenian military industry; necessary funds have been
allocated for this purpose,” Prime Minister stated.

Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan said the project is aimed at
establishment of legal, economic, social, scientific and technical
personnel in the military industry field. ” The approval of the
project will contribute military industry of the Republic of Armenia
” Ohanyan noted.

The decision will enable Armenian Armed Forces provide with sufficient
number of modern arms and military equipment.

In this context the Government of the Republic of Armenia will prolong
the license validity period with “Electron” company for five years.

ARMENIAN COMMUNISTS REITERATE SUPPORT FOR MILITARY COOPERATION WITH RUSSIA

news.am
April 12, 2012 | 12:35

YEREVAN.- Strengthening of the alliance between the armed forces of
Armenia and Russia within CSTO must be the focus of Armenia’s policy,
Communist Party says.

Head of the Armenian Communist Party Ruben Tovmasyan presented the
party’s election program on Thursday.

He believes Armenia’s Constitution should be completely reviewed and
a new one elaborated.

“We must put an end to corruption, bribery and clans. We need a law
to lift immunity of MPs. All should be equal before the law regardless
of their post,” he emphasized.

An army-nation union should be one of the main goals of the state. At
the same time, communists are confident of vital importance of
strengthening military cooperation with Russia to struggle against
influence of NATO’s expansion.

The Communist Party of Armenia is running for the parliament jointly
with the Progressive United Communist Party.

In the period of Armenia’s independence the party was presented in
the parliament in 1991-2003. Ruben Tovmasyan is first secretary of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia. The party’s mottos
are ‘Nation wins if Communists win’ and ‘Socialism, homeland, victory.’

The party’s proportional list includes 75 names.

“I BELIEVE AND HOPE THAT THE LURE OF CAPITALISM IS SINKING” – WORLD NEWS

San Francisco Luxury News

April 11 2012

The last film (Marseille, 1953), The Snows Kilimanjaro, has nothing
to do with the novel by Ernest Hemingway, but with sleep truncated
labor militancy in the cesspool of the systemic crisis we are facing
and centrifuging the old concept of class struggle . A film that
approaches the everyday, to the lives of ordinary people. Guédiguian,
whose work usually covers the territory of the social and political
criticism, is inspired by the poem by Victor Hugo pauvres Les gens
to dissect the terrible contradictions of the present, where the old
poor are rich compared with the new poor.

Question

. The philosopher Sidi M. Barkat said, “The class struggle has moved
within each worker.” I think the film illustrates this perfectly.

Response. Yes, the class struggle through the village itself, each
worker because capital has created the illusion that everyone was a
little capitalist, that all were bourgeois, an illusion that could be
internalized through small concrete things like the small shareholders,
access to property … That was the focus of the speech by Nicolas
Sarkozy five years ago when he won the elections: French build a
house, in which individual success is always possible and in which
we are all bourgeois. This is what finds the pair of main characters
in my film when they wonder what those young people who think about
what we were when we become? And they answer, that we are bourgeois,
we seem about bourgeoisie. Yet this couple has very little, has had
two important things: a dream and work. Today, the new generation
does not have a job or a dream.

P. What is it?

R. I think, I hope that the lure of capitalism is sinking and I
think there is a new generation, those 20 years, no longer believe
in the individual success, the need to do great masters of commerce
or political science, which makes the whole world as if there were
only rich and high tables, banks and big multinationals.

P. But the rich are getting richer and occupy almost all the power. In
France, for example, Sarkozy could win again.

R. No, I do not. At least that is what I want. And to advance, it is
sometimes necessary to take the wishes as reality. If Hollande passed
to the second round and Mélenchon up to 20% …

P. would be the revolution.

R. Yes, the revolution. This is my wish. I worked a lot with Jean-Luc
Mélenchon, we know from the European constitutional referendum of
2005, when he distanced himself from the official to vote socialist.

This idea of ??this film comes from that time. Wrote an article in
Le Monde on the working class not calling for the referendum. But he
would not use this term and found the title of the poem by Victor Hugo
pauvres Les gens, and so I called my article. I almost cried when I
reread it and I said I had to do a film about the love story of two
characters who have the same idea of ??the world, poor people today.

P. What about your next project?

R. I’ll make a film about the Armenian genocide. It’s an incredible
story. An epilogue would, at present, and a prologue in 1920, and
the action will run in the 1980â~@²s, when young people of the third
generation of the diaspora took up arms. In those years there were
over 150 attacks Armenian underground organizations. The film will be
held in Paris, Marseille and Beirut and Yerevan. But probably starting
in Berlin in 1921, when Soghomon Tehlirian, a young Armenian, shot
himself to Talaat Pasha, former Minister of Interior and one of those
responsible for genocide, after being sentenced to death in Turkey,
took refuge in Germany.

P. The French film is the last great European film industry. Why?

R. Why is beautifully preserved, because they have to produce
television movies, because there is a tax on every movie that is
passed in France, including the American cinema, which reverses in
French cinema. There is a national consensus on the film, a sacred
union, both right and left, they agree on the cultural exception.

KIM KARDASHIAN’S DEFENSE IN LAWSUIT: SHE’S ‘ARMENIAN AND HAIRY’

Fox News

April 11 2012

Kim Kardashian is calling herself “Armenian and hairy” in order to
get out of a lawsuit, The Sun reports.

The 31-year-old is being sued by beauty company Radiant, who claim
she has falsely endorsed a competitor’s hair removal product.

But the reality star has asked the court to dismiss her from the
lawsuit, saying her statement was an honest reflection of her opinion.

PHOTOS: Kim shows off hairless bod.

According to Radiant, Kim falsely claimed home laser hair-removal
TRIA works all over the body and has permanent results.

“Being Armenian and hairy, I thought [TRIA] was the perfect product”

– Kim Kardashian

However, the brand says it does neither and that Kim’s misleading
product endorsement has put their hair-remover no!no! at an unfair
disadvantage.

PHOTOS: Kim Kardashian through the years.

Reality star Kim, who’s now dating Kanye West, said she uses the
product all over her body and was only being honest.

“Being Armenian and hairy, I thought [TRIA] was the perfect product,”
she said.

Indeed.

KIM KARDASHIAN SWEARS IN COURT THAT’S SHE’S ‘ARMENIAN AND HAIRY

Entertainmentwise

April 11 2012

Find out why…

Kim Kardashian is hoping that a lawsuit will be dropped against her
because she is “Armenian and hairy”.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star has been in court to defend
herself after a hair removal company has sued her over her endorsement
of a rival product.

Kim, 31, has filed new legal documents in the ongoing legal battle,
according to TMZ, against a beauty company called Radiant, who have
accused the reality star of lying about the results of TRIA.

The bootylicious babe, who is well known for her groomed appearance,
became the face of TRIA – a home laser hair-removal system, and she
insisted that it works all over your body.

Radiant dispute this and believe that Kim’s involvement in the product
has put their rival product (no! no! hair) at an unfair disadvantage.

Under oath, Kim said: “Being Armenian and hairy, I thought [TRIA]
was the perfect product.”

The reality star has now asked the court to be dismissed from the
lawsuit.