Gohar Şirinyan

Gohar Şirinyan — Biography

Gohar Şirinyan (Koharik Shirinian, in Armenian Գոհարիկ Շիրինյան) was one of the stage artists of the late nineteenth-century Ottoman-Armenian theater who worked both as an operetta soprano and as a dramatic actress. She is counted among those who brought Comédie-Française staging methods to the Ottoman stage and over her career she moved easily between operetta, tragedy and drama.

She was born in Kumkapı and went on stage very young, playing a child's role in Agop Güllü's theater in 1874. Her voice was close to a tenor, and from 1878 to 1880 she played singing male roles in operettas; in 1879 she appeared at the Melekzade garden theater in Bursa, an undertaking backed by the governor Ahmed Vefik Pasha. In 1882 she joined Serovpe Benliyan's operetta company as a soprano and became one of its most important members through her ability and played in almost all the tragedies in its repertoire; she played Fiorella in Les brigands, a role in Giroflé-Girofla, and Fatma in Tigran Chukhajian's operetta Leblebici Horhor Agha.

After the company broke up she joined Mardiros Minakyan's troupe in 1887 and acted in dramas such as Frou-Frou and Le Maître de forges. She took leading roles with the Ottoman Comedy Troupe for ten years, and in the early 1900s was for a while with the Ottoman Comedy Troupe of Reşat Rıdvan Bey. She died in 1935.