Gamrekeli Davit

Davit Gamrekeli [July 27 (August 9), 1911, Chiatura – December 29, 1977, Moscow, buried in Tbilisi, at the Didube Pantheon] was a singer (baritone), People's Artist of Georgia (1943) and Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1951).

He graduated from the Georgian Agrarian Institute in 1932 and the Tbilisi State Conservatory in 1935 (Professor E. Vronsky's class). In the same year, he performed the role of Eletski in Pyotr Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades at the Tbilisi Opera Theater. In 1937, in Moscow, he successfully performed the role of Kiazzo in Z. Paliashvili’s Daisi. In 1938, he won the first vocalists' competition in Moscow. From 1944 to 1952, he was a soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and from 1952 onward, he performed as a concert singer.

Gamrekeli was one of the most prominent Georgian singers; he was known for his velvet voice with a rare, beautiful timbre, great stage presence which earned him tremendous popularity among the audience. He performed about 30 opera roles, including Murman, Kiazzo (in Z. Paliashvili's Abesalom and Eteri and Daisi), Abdoul Arabi (in D. Arakishvili’s The Legend of Shota Rustaveli), Ketskhoveli (in G. Kiladze’s Lado Ketskhoveli), Kako (in A. Andriashvili’s Kako the Robber), Eugene Onegin, Eletski (in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades), Germont and Rigoletto (in Verdi's La Traviata and Rigoletto), Figaro (in Rossini's The Barber of Seville), Valentin (in Gounod's Faust), Escamillo (in Bizet's Carmen), Silvio (in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci), and others.

He was a professor at the Moscow P. Tchaikovsky State Conservatory (his students included I. Morozov, L. Japaridze, and others). He was featured in the film The Shield of Jurghai (1944), which won the USSR State Prize in 1950.

Literature: მჭედლიძე დ., ქართველ მომღერალთა სამი თაობა, თბ., 1968.

M. Akhmeteli