Hibla Gerzmava

Mariinsky Theatre Guest Soloist

• Recipient of the State Prize of the Russian Federation for 2020
• People’s Artist of Russia (2012)
• People’s Artist of Abkhazia (2006)
• Prize-winner at the X International Tchaikovsky Competition (Moscow, 1994; Grand Prix)
• Prize-winner at the 32^nd Tenor Viñas Contest (Barcelona, 1994; 2^nd prize)
• Prize-winner at the 1^st Rimsky-Korsakov International Competition for Young Opera Singers (St Petersburg, 1994; 2^nd prize)
• Prize-winner at the 33^rd International Competition Voci Verdiane – Città di Busseto (Italy, 1993; 3^rd prize)

Hibla Gerzmava was born in Pitsunda (Abkhazia). In 1994 she graduated from the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, completing an assistant traineeship at the conservatory in 1996 (supervised by Irina Maslennikova). Over three years the artist took an elective in organ studies.

In 1995 she became a soloist at the Moscow State Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre.
In 2001 she established the annual music festival Hibla Gerzmava Invites…, which for many years was presented by Svyatoslav Belza.

Has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), the Teatro alla Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Opéra national de Paris, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Théâtre du Châtelet, Madrid’s Teatro Real, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Florence’s Teatro Comunale, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Opernhaus Zürich, the Sofia Opera, the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia and the Semperoper Dresden among other venues as well as at the Ludwigsburger Schloßfestspiele in Germany. Has toured with concert programmes to Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Greece, the USA, Japan and Turkey. Has sung at New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Cadogan Hall, Paris’ Salle Gaveau, Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, the Grand halls of the Moscow Conservatory and the St Petersburg Philharmonia.

Hibla Gerzmava’s repertoire includes the roles of the Swan-Princess (The Tale of Tsar Saltan), the Queen of Shemakha (The Golden Cockerel), Louisa (Betrothal in a Monastery), Rosina (Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Musetta (La bohème), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), Parasha (Mavra), a Nymph (Marco da Gagliano’s La Dafne), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Nannetta (Falstaff), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta and Stella (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Liù (Turandot), Amelia Grimaldi (Simon Boccanegra), Leonora (La forza del destino and Il trovatore), Eve (Haydn’s The Creation), the Guardian Angel (Emilio de Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo) and Médée, Norma, Anna Bolena in the eponymous operas as well as the soprano parts in Verdi’s Requiem and Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass.

She made her debut at the Mariinsky Theatre in 2002, performing the role of Lyudmila in Ruslan and Lyudmila. At the theatre she appears in opera performances and gives concerts, including the ones with Ekaterina Semenchuk and Elīna Garanča.

Repertoire at the Mariinsky Theatre:
Lyudmila (Ruslan and Lyudmila)
Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor)
Violetta Valéry (La traviata)
Elisabeth de Valois (Don Carlo)
Desdemona (Verdi’s Otello)
Mimì (La bohème)
Floria Tosca (Tosca)
Adriana Lecouvreur (Adriana Lecouvreur; world debut, 2024)
Soprano part in Verdi’s Requiem

Has recorded numerous CDs and DVDs, among them Opera. Jazz. Blues, Ave Maria, Oriental Romances and Vocal Cycles and Romances by Russian Composers (works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Myaskovsky and Prokofiev).

Recipient of the prizes Golden Orpheus (2001) and Casta Diva (2010) in the category “Best Female Singer”, the City of Moscow Prize for Literature and the Arts (2010), the Triumph prize (2011), Russia’s Golden Mask National Theatre Award (2012 and 2016), the Culture and Arts Award of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation for 2020. Since September 2021 she has been President of the Onegin National Opera Award. Since the 2022–23 season the musician has been holding the Hibla Gerzmava Opera Singers and Accompanists’ Competition in Moscow.
Information for April 2024