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By Olga Fyodorova
The summer of 1951. The popular health resort Sukhumi on the Black Sea
coast…
“Zuriko! Zuriko!! Where are you?!… No answer… The night is falling, and
only God knows where this guy may be!”
“Come on, you know where he is! At the stadium, playing football and he
will stay there as long as he can see the ball. He’s gonna be a great player,
you can bet on that! Look at the goals he scores, they are beautiful, beautiful!!”
“Why a footballer? His teachers say he will be an engineer. He’s bright
and is great at solving all those problems.”
“The next thing you are gonna tell me he will be an actor. Well, why not?
After all, he has our neighbors doubling up with laughter aping just about
anyone you can think of... Well, let him be a footballer then…”
“And he is a great singer too!”
“Big deal! Georgians are good singers all, don’t you know?”
“But Zuriko is still the best…”
Over the years Zurab Sotkilava has tried it all. Once he was mad about
football, played well and even made it to the national premier league,
always fast, driven and lucky.
Back in those days there was no professional football in this country and
to obtain a profession, he enrolled in the mining department of the local
Polytechnic Institute. Graduating with honors, he then moved on to enter,
of all things, the conservatory! By then he knew all too well that his
voice was a real tyrant capable of forcing him to forget everything else
and concentrate wholly on singing and nothing but singing...
When Zurab was in his last year at the conservatory, he was invited to
join the Tbilisi Opera – then one of the best in the country boasting formidable
traditions and excellent singers. The young tenor became everyone’s darling
there from day one…
In 1968 Zurab Sotkilava, then 31, became the winner of the prestigious
Golden Orpheus music festival in Bulgaria and, shortly after, he was sent
to practice at Milan’s world-famous La Scala Theater.
There, at the birthplace of bel canto, the Georgian tenor felt precisely
in his element savoring the musicality of the Italian language and the
inimitable beauty of operas by Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi, which he mastered
under the watchful eye and expert guidance of the best teachers Italy could
offer. It looked like he was born to sing the melodious Italian songs…
In 1970 Sotkilava won kudos winning the Tchaikovsky International Competition
in Moscow and then bowing out with the first prize and the Grand Prix of
the Francisco Vinas Competition in Barcelona. Shortly after that
twin victory, he was invited to join the Bolshoi Opera company.
Zurab Sotkilava fitted right in with the Bolshoi’s one of a kind constellation
of top-notch singers his renditions of Othello, Cavaradossi, Jose, Hermann
in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Turridu in Mascagni’ opera Cavalleria
Rusticana and others winning glowing reviews in the press and the hearts
of his listeners…
His triumphal performances at international competitions opened him the
way to the world’s best venues each time conquering the people’s hearts
with his voice, red-hot passion and artistic presentation…
Now that high art is viewed as elitist, operatic singers find it real hard
to build up a cult following. There is a handful of operatic stars people
recognize when seeing them in the street and of these chosen few Zurab
Sotkilava is certainly one…
Apart from his operatic achievements, Zurab Sotkilava is also appreciated
for his busy and highly diverse concert schedule, which combines much loved
pop hits with esthetically more refined chamber pieces by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky
and Rakhmaninoff…
Sotkilava is also a popular television personality, singing, joking, philosophizing
and even commenting football games all adding to his well-deserved popularity...
Over the years, Zurab Sotkilava has repeatedly tried his hand at teaching
only to back off realizing how much time and effort it really takes.
A singer gets tired not only when he is singing but also when he is listening
to others because his vocal chords are strained. That’s why working singers
rarely teach. Still, he recently signed on as a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory.
Asked to explain why, Zurab said:
“A singer’s life is one long quest for the right feeling. That is how to
go up high, sing a difficult part and things like that. And when
you finally realize how to make it right, you always want to share your
knowledge with the young singers. What makes our profession so difficult,
however, is that each singer feels and sings his own way meaning that what
suits one just fine may be anathema to others. And still, there are certain
general rules without which you are just not happening, you know…
I owe much to my teachers for putting me on the right track and giving
me the professional impulse, which has kept me singing for nearly 40 years
now…”
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