Levon Sharafyan

The modern Armenian theatre is distinguished by bright individuals-actors and directors, among whom Levon Sharafyan is a star of the first magnitude with brilliancy of a great artist. He was born in 1947, got his professional higher education in the Yerevan Institute of Arts and Theatre. Within decades he, thanks to his God-given gift and diligence has conquered summits of dramatic art. He is a well-known and favorite actor in Armenia and Diaspora every role of whom becomes a noticeable event in theatre life. He has played tens of leading parts in performances of Armenian, American, and European authors. He has won numerous international awards for performing his best parts, his creative work obtained unanimous recognition of the international community. Special attention deserves a galaxy of roles played by Levon Sharafyan in Shakespeare's tragedies "Richard III", "Henry VI", "Hamlet", "Romeo and Juliet", "Julius Caesar" in which he, shining with all verges of his original gift, shocked the audience by display of deep thoughts and feelings. Tours in Tbilisi, Moscow, Sofia, Beirut, Paris, London, Los Angeles and other cities were triumphant procession of his art. Sharafyan is not a one-sided, but a versatile and diverse actor-with the same unsurpassed skill he personifies tragic and comic, heroic and everyday states. The latter ones in his performance express great human life-laughter through tears. Sharafyan does not wear, like other actors, one and the same mask once and forever. In every play he creates a new and unique mask, with manifoldness of characters so typical of him that is actually his mask-a conglomeration of life and human destiny. The number of roles played by Sharafyan is extraordinary impressing-it is more than one hundred. There are no minor roles for him because he transfers even minor roles into the main ones. This is actually the sign of greatness of an actor, manifestation of high responsibility and exactingness of an artist. Sharafyan talent has also exhibited itself in TV and variety shows. It becomes apparent everywhere where he is an artist and he is an artist in everything. And not only an artist, but also a director, a theatre teacher, having brought up numerous youth. He is one of rare artists who are not strangers to international theatre and his presence and work would become conspicuous occurrence in any place of the world.