Sotkilava Zurab Lavrentievich is an outstanding modern opera soloist and teacher. His life is an example of determination and incredible willpower.
Youth. USSR Rising Football Star
Zurab Sotkilava was born in March 1937 in the city of Sukhumi (now Sukhumi), 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 soloist of the opera sang along with them.
Zurab Sotkilava, sport in whose life also played an important role, in childhood and adolescence did not think about the musical path. He was fond of football and managed to prove himself well. The young man was in the team of the city of Sukhumi Dynamo. Zurab Sotkilava played in it as an extreme defender, but often supported attacks on the opponent’s goal. 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 his son's hobbies with football and tried to direct him on the path of music. Once the Sotkilava family was presented with a violin, and the parents found a teacher for the child. Zurab tried to learn to play the instrument for a month. Then a piano appeared in the house, but it was too late to learn to play it at the age of 12. Parents wanted to assign 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 mated with Dynamo from Moscow. In that match, the gates of Muscovites were guarded by the legendary Lev Yashin, and one of the attackers was Valery Urin. This match the Tbilisi team lost 1: 3. Zurab Sotkilava really met Lev Yashin only later, when he became a soloist in the opera. A young football player was injured during a game in Yugoslavia, and in 1959 another injury ended his career in sports.
The beginning of the journey in the theater
In 1958, the football player of the Dynamo Tbilisi team Zurab Sotkilava came for a short visit to visit his relatives in Sukhumi. At this time, pianist Valeria Razumovskaya came to visit them, always believing that a young man could become 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, the professor’s voice did not impress Zurab. But the case 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 fee, the musician agreed to give him lessons. After just a few lessons, the professor told Zurab that he has 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, the Mining Department, and a day after graduation, he passed the entrance exams at the Conservatory of the Georgian capital.
Georgian Opera and Ballet Theater
Sotkilava recalled that once before practicing music he heard on the radio broadcast of the performance of the Italian singer Mario del Monaco in the opera Carmen, which shocked him. At the conservatory, Zurab Sotkilava began to sing in baritone. But Professor David Yasonovich Andzuladze corrected this error. The young man became a tenor. In 1965, singer Zurab Sotkilava made his debut on the stage of the largest theater of his republic - the Georgian Opera and Ballet Theater. In the work “Tosca” by Giacomo Puccini, he sang the part of Cavaradossi. The singer was part of the troupe of this theater until 1974.
Dinar barra
A year after the 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 starting his career. The teacher of the Georgian singer was maestro Dinaro Barra.
After an internship, Zurab triumphantly performed and won first place at the Golden Orpheus competition for young singers. In 1970 he became the second at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition and the winner in Spain. The singer received recognition at home - in 1970 he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR, and three years later - People's Artist.
World 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, the theater director Kirill Molchanov approached the artist and offered to enter the permanent staff.
The following year, Zurab became a permanent artist of the Bolshoi Theater. He recalls that in this he was helped by the support of colleagues from Moscow. In 1974, in Moscow, the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Othello took place, where the singer played the main role. Following her is the “Country Honor” by Pietro Mascagni, where Zurab Sotkilava sang the part of Turiddu.
Europe and the USA
In the 1970s, the Georgian opera singer became a figure that opera lovers around the world recognized. He sang in the theaters of Paris, Milan, US cities. There were rave reviews about him in the United States press. In 1979, singer Zurab Sotkilava received the title of People's Artist of the USSR. During these years, the maestro sang the parts of Radames from Aida Verdi, Jose from Carmen, Manrico from Troubadour, Vaudemont from Iolanta, and the Pretender from Boris Godunov. He does not forget about his roots: on the stage of the theater in Tbilisi, he sang in the operas "Absalom and Eteri" by Zakharia Paliashvili and "The Abduction of the Moon" by Otar Taktakishvili.
Teacher
In the mid-1970s, Zurab Sotkilava began to teach. From 1976 to 1988, he read opera singing at the Moscow Conservatory and became a professor in 1987. In 2002, he returned to teaching at the conservatory. Among the students of the maestro 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.
Disease and Overcoming
Zurab Sotkilava, whose biography includes many difficult pages, at the beginning of 2015 found out 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 his family members (they married Eliso Turmanidze in 1965 and gave birth to two daughters - Teya and Keti) for a long time did not want to talk about the disease, and this became public in the spring of 2015.
Zurab Sotkilava trained his voice to restore previous vocal skills. Resumed classes with students at the conservatory. In 2015, he again went on stage. At the end of October 2015, Zurab Lavrentievich performed at a concert dedicated to him 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 long-standing friendships and joint performances.
Our hero says about himself that he realized all his dreams. At the same time, he continues to speak and notes that when he sings, a happier person in the whole world can not be found. He considers the stage of the Bolshoi Theater his second home.