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Soudabeh Tajbakhsh, ‘A Treasure of Tehran Opera,’ Passes Away

By Pejman Akbarzadeh
BBC Persian Service (13 Sep. 2024)

Soudabeh Tajbakhsh, one of the most renowned singers of the Tehran Opera Company, passed away in anonymity in Munich, Germany, on August 15, 2024. She was 95. Her death is now being announced for the first time through the media, more than three weeks after it occurred.

Since the founding of Rudaki Hall and the Tehran Opera Company in 1967, Tajbakhsh starred in many of the company’s most notable productions. However, her career came to a halt following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Persia (Iran). She spent the last 45 years of her life quietly in Munich.

Soudabeh Tajbakhsh was born in Tehran in 1929. Her uncle, Gholam-Hossein Banan, was one of the most celebrated Persian singers of his time. Although her family encouraged her to pursue a career in Persian music, Soudabeh initially lacked the passion for it.

In 1947, when Soudabeh was just 18, a full opera was staged in Tehran for the first time, albeit with limited facilities. This was made possible by the efforts of Lili Bara, an Austrian opera singer who had taken refuge in Persia during World War II. Bara also taught at the Tehran Conservatory of Music but moved to the United States shortly after. Following her departure, Tamara Pilossian, a Persian-Armenian singer, began teaching at the conservatory. At that time, Tajbakhsh enrolled to study singing, but Pilossian also left the country after just one year. Tajbakhsh later continued her studies with Evlin Baghcheban at the Tehran Conservatory and, in the mid-1950s, moved to Germany to further her education.

At the Cologne Academy of Music (Musikhochschule Köln), Tajbakhsh studied under Joseph Meternich and Clemens Glettenberg. In later years, after she became a successful opera singer with the Tehran Opera Company, Prof. Meternich was invited to Persia to attend her performance in “Don Giovanni” at Rudaki Hall.

During her academic years, Tajbakhsh married Michael Rossos, a Greek opera singer who was working in Germany at the time. Their marriage resulted in two sons, Aris and Arman. The marriage ended when Soudabeh decided to return to Persia.

(Left to right: Culture Minister Mehrdad Pahlbod, opera singer Soudabeh Tajbakhsh, Empress Farah Pahlavi at Rudaki Hall, Tehran, 1968.)

Tehran Opera Company
After her studies, Tajbakhsh appeared as a guest singer in a few roles at Saarbrücken Opera in Germany, but her professional career truly began in 1967. In the spring of that year, after ten years away from her homeland, Soudabeh Tajbakhsh traveled to Tehran to visit her family. Her trip coincided with the state visit of the King and Queen of Thailand, and Tajbakhsh was invited to perform at Golestan Palace for the occasion. The Tehran-based English-language weekly “Iran Tribune” reported on October 25, 1968, that following the warm reception, “the Ministry of Culture officially invited Tajbakhsh to stay in Iran and work with the Tehran Opera Company.”

At the time of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi’s coronation in October 1967, Rudaki Hall, the most prestigious venue for performing arts in Persia, was inaugurated. For the opening ceremony, a Persian composer was commissioned for the first time to write an opera. Ahmad Pejman composed “Jashn-e Dehghan” [Rustic Festival], which featured Hossein Sarshar as the old peasant and Soudabeh Tajbakhsh as the village woman in the lead roles, directed by Enayat Rezai. No audio or video recordings of this historic performance are available. “All attention was focused on the coronation, and nobody paid attention to the opera itself,” Rezai lamented to the BBC Persian Service.

In 1968 the Ministry of Culture, again commissioned Ahmad Pejman to write a new opera “Delavar-e Sahand” [Hero of Sahand]. The libretto was inspired by the story of Babak Khorramdin, a 9th-century Persian revolutionary leader. Hossein Sarshar (Babak) and Soudabeh Tajbakhsh (Rokhsareh) performed the lead roles. An amature recording is available from the live performance and it seems the only available recording of Soudabeh Tajbakhsh performances at Rudaki Hall. Enayat Rezai who was the director of the Tehran Opera Company at that time says: “The operas normally used to be recorded by the hall. We were relieved the recordings are safe there. On the other side, as employees, we were not allowed to record the performances. Nobody imagined that sudden changes would happen in the country and we lost access to everything.”

Regarding European operas, one of Tajbakhsh’s most notable performances was in Tosca, which was staged for the first time in Persia in 1968, under the direction of Enayat Rezai. The production, by the Tehran Opera Company, was warmly received by the media, with Kayhan International praising Tajbakhsh’s voice as a “treasure for Tehran Opera.” In addition to Tosca, Tajbakhsh starred in lead roles in La forza del destino, Turandot, and Madama Butterfly. Music critic Janet Lazarian of Ferdowsi Magazine hailed her as the “most successful female opera singer of the Tehran Opera” that season.

Enayat Rezai, who directed many of these operas, expressed regret that Tajbakhsh’s career did not progress as it should have. He noted that she possessed a dramatic soprano voice, ideally suited for Verdi and Puccini operas. “Her voice was both soft and powerful, with the ability to project across 300 meters without a microphone, a key requirement in opera. Tajbakhsh’s voice reflected the training she received from Professor Meternich, evident in its remarkable quality”, Rezai added.

Soudabeh Tajbakhsh as Cio-Cio-San and Enayat Rezai as Sharpless in a scene from Madama Butterfly, Rudaki Hall, Tehran, 1971-72 season.

One of Tajbakhsh’s relatives, who attempted to organize her private collection a few years ago, said: “Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any audio recordings in her collection. It was only a few years ago that we managed to persuade her to sing and record something in a church in Munich. We wanted to preserve that as a memento.”

In 1972, Soudabeh Tajbakhsh resigned from the Tehran Opera Company and moved to Germany. However, she was later invited several times by Rudaki Hall to perform as a guest singer. In one of these performances, she appeared as Senta in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, directed by James Conrad in 1976.

In September 1978, following the massive anti-government demonstrations in Tehran, events at Rudaki Hall were suspended. By February 1979, after the Islamic Revolution, the Tehran Opera Company was shut down. Tajbakhsh’s sister, Sousan, says, “Soudabeh’s salary from the Pahlavi Foundation was cut, so she began working at a bookstore in Munich. She could not continue her career and never returned to Iran.”

Soudabeh Tajbakhsh passed away on August 15, 2024, in Munich.
—
(UPDATE: The other roles Tajbakhsh performed at Rudaki Hall in the mid-1970s include Leonore in Fidelio and Elizabeth in Don Carlos.)

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Keywords: Opera, Rudaki Hall, Persia, Iran, Tehran Opera House, Persian, Iranian, Sudabeh Tadjbakhsh, Enayat Rezaei, Ahmad Pezhman, Pejman, Pahlavi Era, Mehrdad Pahlbod, Ministry of Culture Art, Fine Arts, Music

Ancient Persia @ Getty Museum (Photo Gallery)

By Pejman Akbarzadeh
Source: BBC Persian TV

Los Angeles is home to the largest Persian community outside of Persia. However, seeing major exhibitions of Persian culture and history in this city is still a rare opportunity. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles is currently displaying over 200 objects from ancient dynasties of Persia. The exhibition has been warmly received but has had a controversial side too.

The exhibition is entitled “Persia“; which is the historical and official international name of Iran until 1935. Although the name was changed by order of Reza Shah in that year, it is still common in foreign languages because of its historical and cultural associations.

“Our collection is very traditional in a way of being Greek and Roman Art. But we feel we need to understand the ancient world in a broader way. So we staged a number of exhibitions to show other civilisations that interacted with Greeks and Romans.” says Jeffery Spier, co-curator of the exhibition. “A few years ago we showed the Egypt and perhaps the greatest civilisation of them all was ancient Iran/Persia. This exhibition tries to show three pre-Islamic Persian dynasties that interacted with the Greeks and Romans; since the beginning of the Achaemenid Empire, established by Cyrus the Great, until the fall of the Sassanians.” Spier added.

Although the Persian Empire is considered the first superpower of the ancient world, general knowledge about it is scant compared to other ancient civilizations, such as Greece and Rome. Parvaneh Pourshariati, an Associate Professor of History at New York City College of Technology, believes “at one point we fell behind, during the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the imperialist and colonialist eras of the early 19th century, the orientalists started to study our languages and do the excavations. But our history was not as important as the history they thought belonged to them, the history of Greece and Rome. Since a certain period, others began to write our history as we had not attempted to do so.”

Among the displayed objects at the Getty Museum, a short sword [akinakes] has generated enormous arguments among archaeologists. This golden sword, attributed to the Achaemenid Artaxerxes I, has never been displayed before. A few media outlets in Tehran have hastily called the sword ‘fake’. However, most archaeologists, while pointing out its differences with similar objects from the Achaemenid era, particularly the design and number of languages carved on the sword, have deferred their final judgment until laboratory examinations. The Getty Museum’s response was brief and siding provide details:
“We have no doubts as to the object’s authenticity but it’s a loan object, not part of our collection, so we can’t speak further to it.”

The Getty Museum has borrowed various objects from North American, European, and Middle Eastern museums for this exhibition. The absence of objects from the museums in Persia/Iran is notable. Iran-US political tensions have affected the cultural-academic exchanges between the two countries.

* The author may be reached by e-mail as pejman.akbarzadeh2 [@] gmail.com

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Persian Treasure of Dagestan National Museum

By Pejman Akbarzadeh

Dagestan National Museum, in the Russian Federation, holds a collection of Persian artefacts and manuscripts which is little known elsewhere. One of the important documents in this museum is a royal Persian order [farman/firman], over 300 years old, from the Safavid king Sultan Husayn to the ruler of Derbent. At that time Derbent was part of the Persian Empire. It was conquered by Russia in 1813, following the Treaty of Golestan and now is part of the Autonomous Republic of Dagestan.

Following the Russian-Persian wars a large part of this land became separated from Persian (Iranian) soil. However, there are still various signs of Persian culture and history in Dagestan, especially at the National Museum in Makhachkala.

*National Museum of Dagestan (Takho-Godi) in Makhachkala*

The museum in its current form was founded in 1924. A multitude of historical documents and artefacts are kept there but a complete catalogue of its acquisitions has not yet been published.

Persian artefacts (mainly weapons) are displayed in three galleries. Some of the items were originally used in the daily life of the Dagestan’s people, such as riding flasks, and dishes decorated with birds or other animals. “Many Dagestanis worked as jewellers within what are now Persia’s modern boundaries. They bought various items which they then took back to Dagestan, such as things for interior design and architecture, but mainly weapons”, Miriam Sagitova, a curator at the museum, says. “Many wars took place in Dagestan and several Khans lived here. These Khans would buy weapons to keep in their homes but, after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, they sold the weapons to museums. Therefore, many weapons in our collection come from those private collections.”

*Afsharid-era Persian helmet, National Museum of Dagestan, Makhachkala*

Alongside the weapons, dishes and tiles, one of the unique items at the National Museum of Dagestan is a farman (written royal decree). It was sent from Shah Sultan Husayn to the governor of Derbent in 1705. “Safavids and other Persian rulers governed the city of Derbent/Darband in Dagestan, where some had family ties with the local rulers. They kept their royal documents in their homes and some are now in the archive of Dagestan National Museum, Miriam Sagitova says. “We have displayed one of them in the gallery.”

One of the other valuable collections in the museum is of paintings with indirect link to Persia/Iran. Various historical exchanges between Persia and Russia are depicted in them, and include a work by François Roubaud: best-known for his panoramic paintings. Roubaud, in this painting, has depicted the Persian Campaign of Peter the Great in 1722, and his meeting with the Persian ruler of Dagestan. After the Bolshevik Revolution this painting was transferred to Russia, from Georgia.

*Roubaud in this painting, has depicted the Persian Campaign of Peter the Great in 1722.*

“Many items in our museum have been transferred from the Caucasus Museum in Tbilisi. This was done after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, as well as after the Russian victory in the Caucasus War in the mid-19th century,” Miriam Sagitova says. “Today, the National Museum is named after Takho Godi, one of the educated and intellectual figures of the Bolshevik Revolution who had a key role in collecting the items for this museum.”

Information on the collections in Dagestan National Museum, including its Persian treasure, is quite limited. In several online sources it is mistaken with Dagestan Art Museum, which is a separate institution. The identification of many cultural institutions in Russia, especially those distant from Moscow and St. Petersburg, is still at an early stage.

——
This article was originally published in Persian on the London-based “Iran International” website.

Selected Bibliography of Persian Music (in English)

Compiled by Pejman Akbarzadeh

– Ackerman, Phyllis. “The Character of Persian Music“. A Survey of Persian Art, 3, 1939.

– Asadi, Hooman. “Aspects of Musical Life in 19th Century Persia“. Paper presented to the Conference on the Qajar Epoch. 1-4 September, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1999.

– Beeman, William. “You Can Take the Music Out of the Country, but … : The Dynamics of Change in Iranian Musical Tradition“, Asian Music, 7 : 2 (1974).

– Blum, Stephen. “The Concept of ‘Asheq in Northern Khorasan“. Journal of the Society for Asian Music, 4, 1972.

– Blum, Stephen. “Music in Contact; The Cultivation of Oral Repertoires in Meshed, Iran“. Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana, 1972.

– Caron, Nelly. “The Ta’zieh, the Sacred Theatre of Iran“. The World of Music, 17:4 (1975).

– Caton, Margaret. “The Classical ‘Tasnif’; A Genre of Persian Vocal Music“. Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles, 1983.

– Christensen, Arthur. “Persian Melody-names of the Sasanian Period“. Hoshang Memorial Volume, Bombay, 1918.

– During, Jean. “Music, Poetry and Visual Arts in Persia“. The World of Music, 1, 1982.

– Farhat, Hormoz. “The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music“. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990.

– Farhat, Hormoz. “Western Musical Influences in Persia“. Musicological Annual XXVII, Ljublijana, 1991.

– Farmer, Henry George. “The Old Persian Musical Modes“. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1937.

– Farmer, Henry George. “The Instruments of Music on the Taq-i Bustan, Bas-Reliefs“. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1938.

– Gerson-Kiwi, Edith. “The Persian Doctorin of Dastgah Composition; (A Phonemenological Study in the Musical Modes)”, Tel-Aviv, 1963.

– Hajjarian, Mohsen [Aryan, M.H.]. “Ghazal as a Determining Factor on the Structure of the Iranian Dastgah“. Ph.D. Maryland University 1999.

– Khoshzamir, Mojtaba. “Ali Naqi Vaziri and his Influence on Music and Music Education in Iran“.Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana, 1979.

– Khoshzamir, Mojtaba. “Aspects of the Persian tasnif“. University of Illinois, unpublished M.M. thesis, 1975.

– Klitz, Brian, and Norman Cherlin. “Musical Acculturation in Iran“. Iranian Studies 4, 1971.

– Lucas, Ann. “Music of a thousand years : a new history of Persian musical traditions“, University of California Press, 2019.

– Mahmoud, Parviz. “A Theory of Persian Music and Its Relation to Western Practice“. Ph.D., Indiana University, 1956.

– Miller, Lloyd. “Music and Song in Persia“. Curzon Press, London, 1999.

– Modir, Hafez. “Research Model in Ethnomusicology Applied to the Radif Phenomenon in Iranian Classical Music“, Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology 3, 1986.

– Mohammadi, Mohsen. “Modal modernities: formation of Persian classical music and the recording of a national tradition” Ph.D dissertation, Utrecht University, 2017.

– Movahed, Azin. “The Persian Nei: A Study of the Instrument and Its Musical Style“. University of Illinois, 1993.

– Nettl, Bruno. “The Radif of Persian Music, Studies of Structure and Cultural Context“, Elephant and Cat. Champaign, Illinois, 1987.

– Nettl, Bruno with Bela Foltin. Jr., “Daramad of Chahargah; a Study in the Performance Practice of Persian Music“. Michigan: Information Coordinators Inc., 1972.

– Nooshin, Laudan. “The processes of creation and recreation in Persian classical music.” Ph.D dissertation, University of London, 1996.

– Paranj, Shahab. “The Concept and Organization of the Rhythm in Persian Āvāzi-Sytle Music” Ph.D dissertation, UCLA. 2021.

– Sadeghi, Manoochehr, “Improvisation in Nonrhythmic solo Instrumental Contemporary Persian Art Music“, MA, California State College at Los Angeles, 1971.

– Simms, Rob. “Avaz in the Recordings of Mohammad Reza Shajarian“. unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Toronto, Faculty of Music, 1996.

– Talai, Dariush. “A New Approach to the Theory of Persian Art Music“. Mahur Cultural & Art Publications, Tehran, 1993.

– Tsuge, Gen’ichi. “Rhythmic Aspects of Avaz in Persian Music“. Ethnomusicology, 14 , 1970.

– Wright, Owen. “The Modal System of Arab and Persian Music AD 1250-1300“, London: Oxford University Press,1978.

– Zonis, Ella. “Contemporary Art Music in Persia“. Musical Quarterly, 51, 1965.

-Zonis, Ella. “Classical Persian Music; An Introduction“. Cambridge-Mass:, Harvard University Press, 1973.

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NOTE : Persia = Iran

ATESHGAH: A Persian Fire Temple That Became a Mosque

By Pejman Akbarzadeh
Source: BBC Persian Service
28 June 2019

On the tourism websites of the Republic of Georgia, a Persian name attracted my attention: ‘Atashgah’. It means ‘place of fire’ and its use is usually associated with Zoroastrian fire temples. The history of the Atashgah in the capital city of Tbilisi goes back to the 5th or 6th century, when Persia was ruled by the Sasanian dynasty, of which Georgia was a part.

Until 2007, Tbilisi’s Atashgah was in danger of destruction, until finally − with the financial support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs − it was restored and a protective roof was installed. Historical fire temples outside the modern borders of Persia (Iran) are quite rare.

Tbilisi’s Atashgah, or Ateshgah as they pronounce it in Georgian, is built on the foothills, below the historical fortress Narikala. It may be the northernmost Zoroastrian fire temple in the world.
“In various 17th-century travelogues, including Chardin’s and Tournefort’s, the Ateshgah is mentioned as one of the famous buildings of Tbilisi,” says Guram Kipiani, an archaeology professor at the Ilia State University in Tbilisi. “Analysing the construction layers of the monument clearly shows it was originally built in Chahar-Taqi style, which is a common style in the Sasanian era. However, it was changed in the later centuries,” he adds.

Current Status of Tbilis’s Ateshgah
The Atashgah is now located in Tbilisi’s old town, in the yard of a house. To visit the site you need to knock on the landlord’s door. As many people are not aware of this requirement, they believe it is closed. In 19th-century photographs, a dome can be seen at the top of the building. This dome collapsed and was not rebuilt. Today, just the main room (8.2×8.5 metres) remains. The height of the external walls is approximately seven metres. The fire temple is built on mountain stones and its floor is not flat. In recent years, a wooden platform has been installed which visitors may walk on.

^{Ateshgah’s dom in the 1900 book Tiflis: souvenirs d’une mission by Baron Joseph de Baye.}

A Fire Temple That Became a Mosque
Various changes were made in the Islamic era to the original building of the Atashgah. Its interior design, for example, features broken arches, which is a distinctive characteristic of post-Islamic architecture. Following the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century, usage of the building as a fire temple was halted. Prof Kipiani believes that in the 8th century, when the Arabs were firmly settled in the area, the fire temple was turned into a mosque. “They filled the arches and attached decorative facades,” he says.

Alexander Chulukhadze, head of the Oriental Studies department at the University of Georgia, adds: “Arabs stayed in Tbilisi for around four centuries. We have no information about the situation of the Zoroastrian community in this era but, based on historical sources, in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Ateshgah became an observatory. Through these centuries, various changes were made to the building. However, the original layers of brick from the Sasanian period still exist.”
Georgia became part of the Persian Empire once again in the 16th century, when the Safavid dynasty came to power. Prof Chulukhadze believes that, after the collapse of Safavid Empire, the Ottoman Turks conquered Tbilisi and the building once again became a mosque. “Any inscription on the site would most likely have been destroyed,” he says.

360-degree video courtesy of Ali Mozaffari

The Ottomans were expelled from Tbilisi in the 1730s after Persia’s Nader Shah campaign in the Caucasus. The Atashgah was gradually abandoned. The building was used as a warehouse for a while and was never restored. Prof Chulukhadze believes one of the reasons for such neglect in the early 20th century is the situation of the area under Stalin. “The communists destroyed various temples and mosques, thus the Georgian historians and archaeologists did not mention the Ateshgah in their works on purpose. They did not want to attract any attention to this building which may cause its destruction. However, the Persian families were the owners of the building until the Russian invasion in the 19th century.”

In 1986, the Soviet government gave the Ateshgah the status of a site of ‘National Significance’. In 2007, years after the collapse of the USSR and creation of new independent states in the region, the government of Georgia assigned the Ateshgah the status of a site of ‘Cultural Heritage’.

(English translation of this article is funded by the World Zoroastrian Organisation; Read the original article in Persian)

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