Irakli Kakhidze

Georgian tenor Irakli Kakhidze graduated from the Batumi Zakaria Paliashvili State Conservatory in 2005. He attended master classes with Leo Nucci and Ruggero Raimondi and later became a member of the opera studio of the Batumi State Music Centre in his home city. Here, he took on his first roles and was able to develop a wide-ranging repertoire, including Alfredo in "La Traviata", Edgardo in "Lucia di Lammermoor", Turridu in "Cavalleria rusticana", Don José in "Carmen", Nadir in "The Pearl Fishers", Rodolfo in "La bohème", Nemorino in "L'elisir d'amore" and Don Ottavio in "Don Giovanni". At Tbilisi Opera, he performed roles such as Ismaele in Verdi's "Nabucco" and Cavaradossi in "Tosca". The young tenor received special support from the Georgian baritone Lado Atanéli.

Irakli Kakhidze is a prizewinner of the Georgian Theatre Society and the Lado Atanéli Competition. In 2014 he was a finalist of the Paris Opera Awards and subsequently performed 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 he performed roles such as Edgardo, Turridu and Alfred in "Die Fledermaus". Other engagements have taken him to the Opéra National de Lorraine (Nancy), the Festival Radio France in Montepellier, the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Tallinn Opera Festival (Estonia), the Daegu International Opera Festival (South Korea) and the National Opera in Bergen (Norway).

He has been a permanent ensemble member of the Mannheim National Theatre since 2017/18, with roles such as Cavaradossi and Edgardo, Pollione in "Norma", Turiddu, Radames, Alfredo in "La Traviata", Ernani, Manrico, Don Carlo, Rodolfo, Werther, Don José and Manrico in "Il Trovatore". Guest engagements have taken him to Theater Dortmund as Ismaele in 2017/18, Theater Kiel as Turiddu in 2018/19 and to the Latvian National Opera Riga as part of a gala concert. During the 2019/20 season, he made a guest appearance at the Latvian National Opera Riga as Rinaldo in "L'Incantesimo", and as Radames at Soirées Lyriques de Sanxa. Future engagements include Pinkerton at the Mannheim National Theatre, Alfredo at the Finnish National Opera and Turiddu at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, among others.