Anita Rachvelishvili named Best Female Singer in leading opera review website poll

Rachvelishvili was nominated for the poll alongside fellow opera stars from around the world. Photo: Clizia Corti/Paris Opera.
Agenda.ge, 04 Jul 2017 - 14:26, Tbilisi,Georgia

Georgian opera star Anita Rachvelishvili has earned her newest international prize after winning the Best Female Singer Award poll from a leading opera review website Bachtrack on Friday.

The mezzo-soprano received 47 percent of the votes in the poll held within the Bachtrack Opera Awards, finishing ahead of Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho, on 45 percent.

Nominees featured in the voting also included famed opera performers Anna Netrebko and Joyce DiDonato.

See a fragment from Paris Opera performance of ‘Samson and Delilah’ featuring Rachvelishvili below:

The performance that earned Rachvelishvili the prize was the Paris Opera show of Samson and Delilah last October, where the Georgian was cast in the principal role.

It was reviewed by Bachtrack critic Anne-Laure Faubert, who praised Rachvelishvili’s voice for its "sonorous sound and sustained highs”.

Able to play a woman who is in turn manipulative, loving and determined, she succeeds brilliantly in the three great arias, and her duet with Samson is a thing of utter beauty”, said the review.

The Bachtrack award is the latest international acclaim for Rachvelishvili, earning her the recognition of the website promoted as "world’s largest site for classical music, opera and dance lover”.

Anita Rachvelishvili in ‘Samson and Delilah’ at Paris Opera. Photo: Vincent Pontet.

Founded in 2008, Bachtrack publishes around 200 reviews of classical music, opera and dance every month from a team of over 100 critics.

Rachvelishvili has also been nominated for the 2017 International Opera Awards Female Singer prize and 2016 GBOSCAR — The Excellence in Opera Award over the last two years.

The Georgian singer rose to international fame with her 2009 title role performance of Carmen at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala.

She also received critical acclaim from Huffington Post for her 2014 appearance in the same opera at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

The mezzo-soprano has also performed in productions staged at other prominent international venues including Staatsoper Berlin and San Francisco Opera.