Opéra Comique’s youth performers honor Manouchian with Aznavour’s ‘Ils sont tombés They Have Fallen’

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When France hosts grandiose ceremonies commemorating D-Day, the heroic role of Missak Manouchian and other foreigners among French Resistance fighters in World War II is often overlooked. French President Emmanuel Macron sought to change that Wednesday by inducting Manouchian into the country's Panthéon national monument. A poet who took refuge in France after surviving the Armenian genocide, Manouchian was executed in 1944 for being a leader in the resistance to the Nazi occupation. Macron praised Manouchian’s “love for France to the point of giving his life" in a speech at the Panthéon, the resting place of France's most revered figures, in the presence of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. “He wanted to be a poet, he became a soldier in the shadows,” Macron said. The moving tribute also honored 23 other members of Manouchian's Resistance group. Their names, to be mentioned on a commemorative plaque, were read one by one, followed by the phrase “Died for France," a high honor in the country. France's 300-year-old Opéra-Comique and their youth performers of the Maîtrise Populaire performing arts program pay homage to Missak Manouchian with the profound, haunting piece 'Ils sont tombés'/They Have Fallen from legendary French musician Charles Aznavour. The parents of Aznavour took in Manouchian's wife, Mélinée, when the Nazis captured the celebrated Armenian poet who had fled the Armenian genocide during WWI and joined the French Resistance during WWII.

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