Zurab Sotkilava

Zurab Lavrentievich Sotkilava (Russian: Зураб Лаврентьевич Соткилава, Georgian: ზურაბ სოტკილავა; 12 March 1937 – 18 September 2017) was a Georgian opera singer and People's Artist of the USSR recipient who was born in Sukhumi and was a 1960 graduate of the Tbilisi State Polytechnical Institute.

Biography

Since childhood, he played football, was in Dynamo Sukhumi at age 16, where he played on the site full-back, many joined the attack. In 1956 he became captain Sotkilava Georgia under the age of 20 years. Two years later, he joined Dynamo Tbilisi. Severe injuries he received in 1958 in Yugoslavia, and in 1959 led to the end of his sports career in Czechoslovakia.

In 1965 he graduated from the Tbilisi Conservatory where he was under guidance from David Andguladze and from 1965 to 1974 was a soloist of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre named after Zakaria Paliashvili. From 1966-68 he was a student at La Scala where his teacher was Dinaro Barra and following that became a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory where he remained till 1988. Six years later he became chairman of the International Tchaikovsky Competition and was a member of the Bologna Academy of Music at which he became known for his singing of Giuseppe Verdi's works.

By 2000 he became Kinoshok chairman of Anapa Film Festival which was hosted throughout the CIS and Baltic States.

In July 2015, Sotkilava was diagnosed with a malignant pancreatic tumor. He died in 2017, aged 80. He was survived by his wife, Eliso Turmanidze, and his daughters, Thea and Kate Sotkilava.

Bolshoi Theatre

• Il Trovatore — Manrico
• Tosca — Mario Cavaradossi
• Iolanta — Vaudemont
• Aida — Radames
• Sadko — Indian merchant
• The Abduction of the Moon — Arzakan
• Un ballo in maschera — Riccardo
• Cavalleria rusticana — Turiddu
• La Molinara — Barone Caloandro
• Boris Godunov — The pretender
• Khovanshchina — Galitzine
• Nabucco — Ismaele

Awards

• 2nd prize International Tchaikovsky Competition (1970)
• Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR (1970)
• People's Artist of the Georgian SSR (1973)
• People's Artist of the USSR (1979)
• Shota Rustaveli Prize (1993)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class (2007)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class (2001)
• Order of the Badge of Honour (1971)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1976)
• Order of Honor (Georgia, 1997)
• Ovation (2008)
• Russian Federation Presidential Certificate of Honour (2012)
• Honorary member of the Academy of Music Bologna (Italy) - elected "for a brilliant interpretation of the works of Verdi"
• Academician of the Academy of aesthetics and Liberal Arts (Moscow)