Two Georgian opera singers among world’s most beautiful

A Georgian opera singer has been named as the world’s most beautiful opera singer while another local opera singer was also named on the list of the world’s most beautiful opera singers.

Soprano Nino Machaidze ranked number one on the list while Nino Surguladze was ranked the eighth most beautiful singer.

The list also featured sopranos Carmen Giannattasio from Italy, Sonya Yoncheva from Bulgaria and Russia’s Olga Peretyatko.

A Georgian opera singer Nino Surguladze. Photo by ninosurguladze.com

Screenwriter Rue Bourbonpublished the rating on her blog and said these beautiful women of opera were named on the list not only for their "undeniable beauty” but also for their "incredible talent”.

Machaidze shot to fame during the 2008 Salzburg Opera Festival - just one year after her debut at Milan's La Scala opera house. The 30-year-old is currently concentrating on lyric-coloratura heroines of Bel Canto repertoire, which is both comic and tragic.

These operas have brought her house debuts in Bologna (in I Puritani with Juan Diego Flórez), Berlin (L’Elisir d’Amore), Brussels (Lucia di Lammermoor), Munich (L’Elisir d’Amore), Valencia (Lucia di Lammermoor under Daniel Oren), Vienna (in Il turco in Italia), Barcelona (La fille du régiment) and her North American debut in L’Elisir d’Amore at Los Angeles Opera, among many other theatres.

On stage Nino Machaidze: Thais - Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla - October 2012. Photo by Machaidze’s Facebook page

Meanwhile, Surguladze was named in eighth place of the world’s most beautiful opera singers.

Surguladze made her debut at the Gran Theatre de Liceu in Barcelona at the age of 22 as Sonjetka Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Other roles she has played at the Liceu included Federica Luisa Miller opposite Samuel Ramey and Maddalena Rigoletto - a role she also sung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York - the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and at the Teatro Real in Madrid with Leo Nucci in the title role.

During her career Surguladze featured in several DVDs, including the film Opera with Placido Domingo where she sang the role of Maddalena. She is also an accomplished actress, having won a special prize at the Geneva Film Festival for her role in the Georgian film Walsi Pechoraze.