Karan Armstrong is an American operatic soprano, celebrated as a singing-actress. Trained as a pianist, Armstrong graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from Concordia College in 1963, she studied with Lotte Lehmann in Santa Barbara, California. She made her operatic debut in 1965 with a secondary company in San Francisco, as Musetta in La bohème, she made her first appearance with the San Francisco Spring Opera the following year, as Elvira in L'italiana in Algeri. In 1966, Armstrong won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which led to her being engaged by the house for small roles, she made her debut at the Met on October 2, 1966, as one of the servants in Die Frau ohne Schatten, under Karl Böhm, with Leonie Rysanek and Christa Ludwig. She continued to perform at the Met through the spring of 1969, in roles like the Paggio in Rigoletto, Annina in La traviata, the Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel. Preferable contracts emanated from the New York City Opera, she made her first appearance with that company as the Reine de Chémakhâ in Le coq d'or, in 1969.

She was to appear at that theatre many times through 1977, singing such roles as Conceptión in L'heure espagnol, Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Violetta Valéry in La traviata, the title heroine in La belle Hélène, Minnie in La fanciulla del West, among others. In 1974, Armstrong first appeared in Europe, as Micaëla in Carmen, at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg; the following year, she created a great sensation with her performance of Salome at the same theatre. Further performances in Europe followed, including Tosca in Venice, Elsa von Brabant in the 1979 Bayreuth Festival's Lohengrin, directed by her future husband, Götz Friedrich, recorded and filmed, she sang in Berlin, Paris, Covent Garden, Los Angeles, the Bolshoi. Armstrong has sung in several operatic world premieres, including Gottfried von Einem's Jesu Hochzeit, Giuseppe Sinopoli's Lou Salomé, Luciano Berio's Un re in ascolto, York Höller's Maître et Marguerite and Siegfried Matthus's Desdemona und ihre Schwestern. Other celebrated roles include those in The Ballad of Baby Doe, The Crucible, Salome, Les contes d'Hoffmann, Bluebeard's Castle, La voix humaine, Pelléas et Mélisande, Wozzeck, Der Rosenkavalier, Les troyens, Die tote Stadt, Karl V. Erwartung, Die Walküre, Katya Kabanova, Montségur, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Bassarids, The Makropulos Case, Mathis der Maler, Tannhäuser and Dialogues des Carmélites.

In 1985, Armstrong was named a Kammersängerin in Stuttgart. Recent roles have included the Widow Begbick in Erfurt. Armstrong was married for many years to impresario Götz Friedrich, their marriage ended only with Friedrich's death, in 2000. The couple had one son, together. Wagner: Lohengrin CBS Menotti: Songs Etcetera Berio: Un re in ascolto col legno Henze: The Bassarids koch schwann Landowski: Montségur Cybelia Zemlinsky: Lyric Symphony Supraphon Verdi: Falstaff Deutsche Grammophon Wagner: Lohengrin EuroArts Korngold: Die tote Stadt Arthaus Musik "Richard-Wagner-Abend" Kultur The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia, edited by David Hamilton and Schuster, 1987. ISBN 0-671-61732-X Karan Armstrong: Das Mädchen aus dem goldenen Westen, by Ruth Renée Reif, Langen Müller, 1996. ISBN 3-7844-2563-1 Karan Armstrong in an excerpt from Lohengrin; the Essential Karan Armstrong

× Pachyveria glauca'Little Jewel' succulent plants are hybrids in the nothogenus × Pachyveria. It is a versatile plant, thriving in containers; this plant has cylindrical tapered leaves, shading from powdery blue with a of purple at the bottom of the plant to a light green at the points of the top leaves. That color darkens down the length of the plant. Leaves resemble gems-jewels; this plant propagates itself by dropping leaves, which sprout new plants, by stem cuttings. × Pachyveria plants do best in desert and arid climates, grow well in porous, well-drained soil. They grow well in full sun, though prefer a bit of shade in more sizzling heat of 92 and higher degrees Fahrenheit, they are drought and heat wave tolerant, but love lots of summer time water, hardy to around 30-35 degrees Fahrenheit. Echeveria elegans Echeveria derenbergii

The Sogdian city-states refers to a number of independent or autonomous city-states in Iranian region of Sogdia in the late antiquity and medieval times. Most of the city-states were ruled by a king or queen, called "first among equals". However, the succession of rule was not stable, the people could influence who would become the new ruler; the period, which experienced its peak in the 7th century, ended with the conquest of Transoxiana by the Islamic Caliphate. Bukhara and Samarkand – the famous cities of Persian literature – were the largest and wealthiest Sogdian states. Principality of Khuttal Principality of Chaghaniyan Bukhar Khudahs Principality of Farghana Principality of Ushrusana