Zurab Anjaparidze
Zurab Anjaparidze was a Soviet, Georgian, and Russian opera singer, theatrical director, and teacher. A lyric-dramatic tenor, he was born on April 12, 1928, in Kutaisi, in the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of the USSR. He became one of the leading operatic figures of his generation and was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1966.
In 1952 he graduated from the Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi Conservatory, where he studied in the class of David Andguladze. From 1952 to 1959, and again from 1970 onward, he was a soloist of the Zakaria Paliashvili Georgian Opera and Ballet Theatre in Tbilisi. Between 1959 and 1970 he was a soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. From 1979 to 1982 he also served as director of the Georgian opera theatre.
Anjaparidze also appeared extensively on the concert stage. His repertoire included romances by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, Neapolitan songs, and vocal cycles by Otar Taktakishvili. Beginning in 1958, he toured abroad in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Yugoslavia, Canada, Romania, Poland, and Greece, and he also made gramophone recordings.
As an opera performer, he sang a wide range of leading tenor roles. These included Abesalom in Paliashvili's Abesalom and Eteri, Malkhaz in Daisi, Otello in Verdi's Otello, Canio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Turiddu in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Hermann in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Don Carlos in Verdi's Don Carlos, José in Bizet's Carmen, Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca, Alfred in La Traviata, Radamès in Aida, the Duke in Rigoletto, Faust in Gounod's Faust, and the Pretender in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. He also appeared in several opera films, including The Queen of Spades, Iolanta, Abesalom and Eteri, and Daisi.
He worked as a stage director as well, producing opera performances at the Kutaisi Opera Theatre and at the Alexander Spendiaryan Armenian Opera and Ballet Theatre in Yerevan. Among the productions associated with him were Taktakishvili's Mindia, Revaz Lagidze's Lela, and Paliashvili's Daisi.
From 1972 Anjaparidze taught at the Tbilisi Conservatory, becoming a professor in 1984. He later headed the department of musical disciplines at the Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi Theatre Institute. He also served on the juries of international vocal competitions, including the Fifth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1974, and was the first chairman of the David Andguladze International Competition in Batumi in 1996.
His distinctions included second prize at the competition of vocalists of the Fourth World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957, the titles Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR and People's Artist of the Georgian SSR, the Paliashvili State Prize of the Georgian SSR, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order of Honor, and honorary citizenship of Tbilisi.
Anjaparidze died in Tbilisi on April 12, 1997, his sixty-ninth birthday. He was buried in the garden of the Georgian Opera Theatre named after Paliashvili beside major figures of Georgian operatic music, including Zakaria Paliashvili and Vano Sarajishvili. His memory was later honored with a memorial plaque in Tbilisi, a prize and foundation bearing his name, a commemorative book published for his eightieth anniversary, and the naming of a Tbilisi street after him in 2017.
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