Zurab Sotkilava - Georgian opera singer: biography, family, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Sotkilava Zurab Lavrentievich is an outstanding contemporary opera soloist and teacher. His life is an example of determination and incredible willpower.

Youth. Rising football star of the USSR

Zurab Sotkilava was born in March 1937 in the city of Sukhumi (now Sukhum), which was then part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

The singer recalls that his mother and grandmother sang and played the guitar very well. Sometimes they sat down near the house and began to sing old songs and Georgian romances, and the future opera soloist sang along with them.

Zurab Sotkilava, whose sport also played an important role in his life, did not think about the musical path in his childhood and youth. He was fond of football and managed to show himself well. The young man got into the team of the city of Sukhumi "Dynamo". Zurab Sotkilava played in it as a fullback, but often supported attacks onenemy gate. In 1956, the young athlete became the captain of the youth team of the Georgian SSR. In the same year, Georgian football players won the national championship. And in 1958, Zurab was invited to play in the Dynamo team from Tbilisi.

Parents did not share their son's passion for football and tried to direct him to the path of music. One day, the Sotkilava family was given a violin, and the parents found a teacher for the child. Zurab tried to learn to play this instrument for a month. Then a piano appeared in the house, but it was too late to learn how to play it at the age of 12. Parents wanted to send Zurab to a music school in the cello class, but he again refused. He was accepted there in a singing class, but the teenager did not study very diligently and liked to run away from school to the stadium.

The most memorable meeting for Zurab was his last match for Dynamo, in which his team clashed with Dynamo from Moscow. In that match, the gates of the Muscovites were guarded by the legendary Lev Yashin, and one of the attackers was Valery Urin. The Tbilisi team lost this match with a score of 1:3. Zurab Sotkilava really met Lev Yashin only later, when he became an opera soloist. The young football player was injured while playing in Yugoslavia, and in 1959 another injury ended his career in the sport.

Starting at the theater

In 1958, Zurab Sotkilava, a football player of the Dynamo Tbilisi team, came to visit his relatives in Sukhumi for a short time. At this time, pianist Valeria Razumovskaya came to visit them, always believing that a young man couldbecome a talented singer. She convinced him to go to an audition with a professor at the Tbilisi Conservatory, who was just in Sukhumi.

At first Zurab's voice didn't impress the professor. But chance intervened. The professor loved football, but it was difficult to get tickets for Dynamo matches, and Zurab began to get them for him. As a payment, the musician agreed to give him lessons. After just a few lessons, the professor told Zurab that he had a future in opera. At first, the young man did not take it seriously, but after the second injury, he thought about music.

In 1960, Zurab Sotkilava graduated from the Tbilisi Polytechnic Institute, Faculty of Mining, and a day after defending his diploma, he passed the entrance exams to the conservatory of the capital of Georgia.

Georgian Opera and Ballet Theater

Sotkilava recalled that once, before studying music, he heard on the radio a performance of the Italian singer Mario del Monaco in the opera Carmen, which shocked him. At the conservatory, Zurab Sotkilava began to sing as a baritone. But Professor David Yasonovich Andzuladze corrected this mistake. The young man became a tenor. In 1965, the singer Zurab Sotkilava made his debut on the stage of the largest theater in his republic - the Georgian Opera and Ballet Theatre. In the work "Tosca" by Giacomo Puccini, he sang the part of Cavaradossi. The singer was a member of the troupe of this theater until 1974.

Dinaro Barra

A year after his debut, he went on an internship at the La Scala theater in Milan, which took two years. At that time, many outstanding artists sang on the Milan stage, among them Pavarotti was already beginning his career. The teacher of the Georgian singer was maestro Dinaro Barra.

After the internship, Zurab triumphantly performed and took first place in the Bulgarian competition of young singers "Golden Orpheus". In 1970 he became the second at the Moscow competition named after P. I. Tchaikovsky and the winner in Spain. The singer received recognition in his homeland - in 1970 he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR, and three years later - People's Artist.

Global recognition

For the first time in 1972, Zurab Lavrentievich appeared on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater at a concert dedicated to the centenary of the outstanding opera soloist Leonid Sabinov. At the end of 1973, Zurab Sotkilava again performed on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, where he sang the part of Jose in the opera Carmen. After the performance, theater director Kirill Molchanov approached the artist and offered to join the permanent cast.

The following year, Zurab became a permanent artist of the Bolshoi Theatre. He recalls that the support of colleagues from Moscow helped him in this. In 1974, the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello took place in Moscow, where the singer played the main role. It was followed by "Country Honor" by Pietro Mascagni, where Zurab Sotkilava sang the part of Turiddu.

Europe and USA

In the 1970s, the Georgian opera singer became a figure recognizable to opera lovers around the world. He sang in theaters in Paris, Milan, US cities. The United States press wrote rave reviews about him. In 1979 the singer Zurab Sotkilavareceived the title of People's Artist of the USSR. During these years, the maestro sang the parts of Radamès from Verdi's Aida, José from Carmen, Manrico from Il trovatore, Vaudemont from Iolanta, and the Pretender from Boris Godunov. He does not forget about his roots either: on the stage of the theater in Tbilisi, he sang in the operas Abessalom and Eteri by Zakharia Paliashvili and The Abduction of the Moon by Otar Taktakishvili.

Teacher

In the mid-1970s, Zurab Sotkilava began teaching. From 1976 to 1988 he taught opera singing at the Moscow Conservatory and became a professor in 1987. In 2002 he returned to teaching at the conservatory. Among the maestro's students is tenor Vladimir Bogachev, who collaborates with the Vienna State Opera, La Scala and other world-class theaters. Another student, baritone Vladimir Redkin, has been performing on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater for thirty years. Among the younger students of Zurab Lavrentievich is the tenor of the Bolshoi Theater Alexei Dolgov.

Illness and overcoming

Zurab Sotkilava, whose biography includes many difficult pages, at the beginning of 2015 learned about a terrible diagnosis - pancreatic cancer. A little earlier, the maestro noticed that he began to lose weight dramatically. On January 19, he was forced to cancel the concert, and on the 20th the diagnosis was confirmed. The singer was operated on in Germany on January 30, and then he underwent chemotherapy in Moscow. The singer and members of his family (they got married with Eliso Turmanidze in 1965 and gave birth to two daughters - Teya and Keti) for a long time did not want to talk about illness, and we althit became public in the spring of 2015.

Zurab Sotkilava trained his voice in order to regain his former vocal abilities. He resumed classes with students at the conservatory. In 2015, he returned to the stage. At the end of October 2015, Zurab Lavrentievich performed at a concert dedicated to him, which was held at the Moscow International House of Music. In early 2016, Zurab Lavrentievich performed at a concert in memory of Elena Obraztsova, a singer with whom he had many years of friendship and joint performances.

Our hero says that he has fulfilled all his dreams. At the same time, he continues to perform and notes that when he sings, there is no happier person in the whole world. He considers the stage of the Bolshoi Theater his second home.