Armenia once stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian, but these days it is small, high, and landlocked. Its capital, Yerevan, looks wistfully across a valley to Mount Ararat, last resting place of Noah's Ark and now part of Turkey. “But only temporarily,” they say in Yerevan's marketplace.
The country's population is three million, but with its troubled history there are more Armenians in the diaspora. Many of them are musical. Charles Aznavour was born Charles Aznavourian in Paris. Cher, famed for her minimalist gowns, began life as Cherilyn Sarkisian in California. Aram Khachaturian, best known for his “Sabre Dance,” lived in Moscow but Yerevan Opera House has an auditorium named after him.
Its favourite opera, Tigranyan's Anoush, is a story of doomed love in a mountain village. The male chorus wear shaggy coats and hats, and the heroine throws herself off a cliff in the last act. Just the thing, we thought, for pre-conference relaxation.
Opera-going in former Soviet countries is a family affair. We found ourselves sitting in front of middle aged mums who exchanged observations during most of the performance. They fell silent in the tenor's final scene—not when the poor man was fatally shot by the bass but when the crowd parted to reveal his mother. Behind us there was dead silence, then sniffles.
In front of us was a group from the diaspora, just flown in from the West and checking out their heritage.
After the conference, there was time for a short trip to a mountain monastery. Armenia adopted Christianity in 301 ad, and church building has been a national preoccupation ever since. This one nestled against a cliff and merged with a series of chambers hewn from the rock, complete with pillars that had survived several centuries and one major earthquake.
As we marvelled, the sound of a choir echoed around us. We lowered our digital cameras respectfully. The singing seemed to come from another world. Back at the altar we saw in the candlelight a young woman—head bowed, lips barely moving—murmuring a psalm. The mountain was supplying the harmonies. Nice to know that the diaspora does not have all the best tunes.