Irakli Kakhidze — Georgian Tenor

About

A Voice From Batumi
to the World's Great Stages

Irakli Kakhidze
Tenor
The Georgian tenor IRAKLI KAKHIDZE received his musical training at the Conservatory of his hometown Batumi, Georgia, graduating in 2005. He attended masterclasses with Leo Nucci and Ruggero Raimondi and subsequently became a member of the Opera Studio of the State Music Centre of Batumi. There he sang his first roles and developed a broad repertoire, including Alfredo (La traviata), Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana), Don José (Carmen), Nadir (Les pêcheurs de perles), Rodolfo (La bohème), Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore), and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni).

As a soloist at the Tbilisi Opera, he appeared in roles such as Ismaele in Verdi’s Nabucco and Cavaradossi in Tosca. During this period, he received particular support from the Georgian baritone Lado Atanéli. As Ismaele, Irakli Kakhidze has since performed, among other venues, at Theater Dortmund, Bergen National Opera, the Latvian National Opera, and the Chorégies d’Orange Festival.

Irakli Kakhidze is a prize winner of the Georgian Theatre Society and the Lado Atanéli Competition. In 2014, he was a finalist of the Paris Opera Awards and subsequently gave concerts at the opera houses of Marseille, Avignon, and Toulouse. From 2011 to 2013, he was a member of the Centre National d’Artistes Lyriques (CNIPAL) in Marseille and Avignon, where his roles included Edgardo, Turiddu, and Alfred in Die Fledermaus. Further engagements took him to the Opéra National de Lorraine (Nancy), the Festival Radio France in Montpellier, the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Tallinn Opera Festival (Estonia), the Daegu International Opera Festival (South Korea), and the National Opera in Bergen (Norway).

After appearing as Cavaradossi at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in the 2016/17 season, he joined the ensemble in the 2017/18 season. There he has since performed in productions including Ernani, Don Carlos, Norma, Cavalleria rusticana, Aida, Lucia di Lammermoor, Tosca, La traviata, Carmen, La bohème, Il trovatore, and Werther.

In the 2021/22 season, he appeared as a guest artist in Helsinki (La traviata), Wiesbaden (Il trovatore), Hong Kong, Düsseldorf, Avignon (Carmen), and Taiwan (Don Carlos). During the 2023/24 season, he performed in Seoul as Pollione (Norma), in Hong Kong as Manrico (Il trovatore), in Düsseldorf as Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana), in Leipzig as Don José, in Tbilisi in Don Carlos, and in Mannheim in Le Villi as well as in a concert performance of La forza del destino. Engagements in the 2024/25 season included Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Riga, Iași (as Radamès in Aida), and Mannheim.

Planned roles for the 2025/26 season include Radamès (in a production by the Latvian National Opera alongside Marina Rebeka and Elīna Garanča), Don José in Leipzig, and Manrico in Düsseldorf. At the Nationaltheater Mannheim, he will appear, among other roles, as Canio (Pagliacci) and F. B. Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly).

Irakli Kakhidze has been awarded the Medal of Honour and is an honorary citizen of his hometown Batumi, Georgia

Press

What They're Saying

Don José, to whom Irakli Kakhidze once again lends tenorial world-class stature — the bloom, the power, the effortless command of the upper register — nothing short of sensational.

Mannheimer Morgen — Carmen

A voice of bloom, radiance and flawless control. One hears immediately that he is at home in the Italian tradition.

Online Merker — I Pagliacci

Kakhidze relishes the attack of a full-throttle high C, controls his mellifluous voice at his pleasure, and keeps his audience at the edge of their seats with a fearless stage presence.

Interlude.hk

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