Anita Rachvelishvili became internationally known when on December 7th 2009, the opening night of the La Scala season, she sang the title role in Carmen opposite Jonas Kaufmann as Don José, in a production staged by Emma Date and conducted by Daniel Barenboim. This performance, which was her first of any major role in the West and which was her debut in the role, was also televised all over the world.
 
She has since debuted as Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper München, the Staatsoper Berlin, the Seattle Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Teatro Regio in Turin, with the Canadian Opera Company, and at the Arena di Verona, as well as making a return in the role to the Teatro alla Scala. Anita Rachvelishvili made her Netherlands debut when she sang her first Dalila in a concert performance of Samson et Dalila at the Concertgebouw. She has also been heard Dulcinée in Massenet’s Don Quichotte at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari. In the fall of 2011 Anita Rachvelishvili debuted at Carnegie Hall alongside Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas Kaufmann as the Principessa di Bouillon in Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. Other roles in her repertoire have also Isabella in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri at the Scala, and the title role in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and at the Festival de Peralada I. In the 2012/2013 season the artist sang the role of Amneris in Aida for the Michigan Opera Theater for the first time. Anita Rachvelishvili returned to the Staatsoper Berlin in as Lyubasha in the new production of Rimsky Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, staged by Dmitry Cherniakov and conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

 
Performances for the 2013/2014 season include appearing as the Konschakowna in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Borodin’s Prince Igor which will be the first time the company has performed this work since 1917. Rachvelishvili will also make her debut at the Teatro all’Opera di Roma as Carmen, and returns to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in the same role. Earlier in the season, she sang as Carmen at the Staatsoper Berlin and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She also returns to the Arena di Verona this season as Carmen and as Amneris in Aida.
 
Engagements in future seasons include a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Carmen, her Paris Opera debut as Amneris in “Aida”, “Samson et Dalila” in Berlin and Sao Paulo, Azucena in “Il Trovatore” at Covent Garden and concerts of the Verdi Requiem at the Salzburg Festival.
 
Anita Rachvelishvili was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. She at first studied piano at the Mukhran Machavariani School and then singing at the Vano-Sarajishvili Conservatory with Manana Egadze. She received a stipend from the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, and in 2007 won the Paata Burchuladze Prize. While still a student at the conservatory, she debuted at the Opera in Tblisi as Maddalena in Rigoletto and as Olga in Eugen Onegin, subsequently joining the ensemble of the theater in the fall of 2006. In 2007 she was invited to join the Accademia at the Teatro alla Scalla, it was there she was heard by Daniel Barenboim, who then invited her to star in the new production of Carmen which opened the 2009/2010 La Scala Season.
 
photo credit: Salvatore Sportato