About this Artist
Since his sensational debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Rigoletto in 2009, the Georgian baritone GEORGE GAGNIDZE has ranked among the leading singers of his genre.
Regularly invited by the most prestigious international opera companies, during the 2017/18 season he will be heard as Tonio in Pagliacci and Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Hamburg State Opera, Amonasro in Aida at the Teatro Real, Madrid and at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan as well as his role debut as Barnaba in La Gioconda at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Announced performances in 2018/19 include La traviata (Giorgio Germont) and Otello (Iago) at the Paris Opera as well as Il tabarro (Michele) and Rigoletto (title role) at the Metropolitan Opera.
Career highlights include the title roles in Rigoletto and Macbeth; Amonasro in Aida and Shaklovity in Khovanshchina at the Metropolitan Opera, Nabucco (title role) and Tosca (Scarpia) at the Vienna State Opera, Rigoletto, La traviata, and Aida at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Tosca and Aida at the Opéra National de Paris, Andrea Chénier (Carlo Gérard) at the San Francisco Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin, Falstaff (title role) at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Simon Boccanegra (title role) at the Teatro Real, Rigoletto at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci at Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, La traviata and Nabucco at the Arena di Verona, and Otello at the Greek National Opera and the Staatsoper Hamburg.
Born in Tbilisi and trained at the State Conservatory of his hometown, George Gagnidze debuted as Renato in Un ballo in maschera in 1996 at the Paliashvili State Opera. After launching his international career in Germany, he was soon engaged by many of the world’s important opera houses.
He is a winner of the 2005 “Voci Verdiane” Competition and has worked with many of the most prestigious conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, James Conlon, Plácido Domingo, Mikko Franck, Jesús López-Cobos, Nicola Luisotti, Daniel Oren, Gianandrea Noseda, and Kirill Petrenko.
With his performance as Iago in Otello, Gagnidze is making his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut.