Nino Machaidze

Soprano Nino Machaidze broke through internationally with a 2008 Salzburg Festival performance in the lead female role in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. She has a large repertory of Italian- and French-language roles in 19th century opera. Machaidze was born in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on March 8, 1983. Her mother was a Georgian language teacher, and her father was an economist. She started voice and piano lessons at age six in a youth program connected with the Tbilisi State Conservatory. She also took flute lessons as a teen in order to strengthen her voice production. As early as 2000, Machaidze was landing operatic roles, including Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Georgian National Opera Theatre in Tbilisi. She left Tbilisi in 2005 after winning a competition for lessons at the Theater Academy of Milan, Italy's La Scala opera house. There, she studied with Luciana Serra, Leyla Gencer, and Luigi Alva; she also took master classes from Mirella Freni, among others. The young Georgian was quickly cast at La Scala, first as Najade in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos (one of her few German-language roles). Machaidze scored a major career breakthrough in 2008 when she substituted for the pregnant Anna Netrebko in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Salzburg Festival. Machaidze also became a fixture of productions at La Scala in the late 2000s and 2010s, appearing in such roles as Marie in Donizetti's La fille du régiment and Musetta in Puccini's La bohème. Machaidze branched out beyond Italy and Austria, making her debuts as Adina in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with both the Los Angeles Opera and La Monnaie in Belgium in 2009. In 2011, she made her recording debut on the Sony Classical label with the album Romantic Arias, and that year, she also appeared for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with a pair of runs in Verdi's Rigoletto. She continued to appear at top houses into the 2020s, living in Italy but maintaining performance ties to her Georgian homeland, singing the Georgian national anthem in a parade marking the country's centennial. Machaidze returned on Sony Classical with the album Arias & Scenes in 2013, and in 2023, she was heard as Giselda in a recording of Verdi's I Lombardi with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester.
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