Gamrekeli Davit

Gamrekeli Davit ( 1911-1977), Opera baritone, born in Chiatura, West Georgia. In 1935 D. Gamrekeli graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatoire (class of Professor E. Vronski). In 1937, during the 1st Decade of Georgian Literature and Arts in Moscow he successfully performed the aria of Kiazo in Z. Paliashvili’s opera Daisi (Sunset). In 1928 he won he first place at the All-Union Competition of Vocalists in Moscow. In 1944-52 he was the leading soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. During that period D. Gamrekeli performed numerous opera parts on the stage of the Bolshoi: Eugene Onegin in P. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Yeletsky in The Queen of Spades (P. Tchaikovsky), Germont in La Traviata (G. Verdi), Escamillo in Carmen (G. Bizet), Silvio in Pagliacci (R. Leoncavallo). As of 1952 he went on the boards as a concert singer. In 1943 he was awarded the title of People’s Artiste of Georgia; in 1951 he was granted the title of the Honorary Worker of Arts of the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics and in 1950 he became the Laureate of the USSR State Prize.

D. Gamrekeli died in Moscow. He was buried at the Didube Pantheon in Tbilisi.