Dedicated to The Victory Day.
Hibla Gerzmava, Oleg Akkuratov

Hibla Gerzmava graduated from the vocal department of the Moscow conservatory in 1994, and finished her postgraduate course there in 1996. Since 1995 she has been the soloist of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko musical theatre in Moscow. Her name has been famous since 1994, when she won the Grand Prix at the Tchaikovsky International Competition, the first and only time in the competition’s history that the highest prize has been awarded to a women vocalist. 

She is highly sought-after guest soloist at leading opera houses worldwide, including the Mariinsky Theatre, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Teatro La Scala and opera houses in Vienna, Paris and Rome, Zürich, Madrid etc. She has performed with such outstanding musicians and conductors as Lorin Maazel, Antonio Pappano, Marco Armiliato, Adam Fischer, Jiří Belohlávek, Fabio Luisi,Vladimir Spivakov, Valery Gergiev, Alexander Rudin, Vladimir Fedoseyev, and many others.

In 2010, her performance of Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor brought her the highest Russian theatrical award – the Golden Mask, as well as Casta Diva Critics Award and the Moscow Government Award for achievement and contribution to the world of arts and culture. In 2016, her performance of Cherubini’s Medea brought her the second award of Golden Mask. In 2021, Hibla Gerzmava was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation in literature and arts. 

Hibla Gerzmava has appeared with recitals in Sweden, France, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Greece, the USA, Japan and Turkey. In 2002 and 2003, she took part in the Ludwigsburg Festival in Germany where she sang Eva in Die Schöpfung by Haydn and the Angel in the Rappresentatione di anima e di corpo by Emilio de Cavalieri. Hibla Gerzmava is often invited to take part in oratorio concerts. She has sung soprano parts in Mozart’s Requiem, Great Mass in C minor, Coronation Mass, Vesperae solennes de confessore, in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem. 

In March 2008, Hibla Gerzmava made her Covent Garden debut as Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and appeared there again in 2009 as Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème, coming back to the Royal Opera House in January 2012 as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. She sung the part of Mimi for her debuts at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in Rome in 2011. In 2010, Hibla made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the parts of Stella and Antonia in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, and in 2011 she went back there to sing Mimi in Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La bohème. 

She made her triumphal debut on the stage of Palais Garnier at the Opéra National de Paris as Vitellia in Willy Decker’s production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito in September-October 2011. She also sung at the BBC Proms Opening Night in July 2011 in Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek and took part in the Mariinsky Theatre’s tour to Japan in February 2011, performing the part of Liù in Puccini’s Turandot at the NHK Hall in Tokyo. 

In the season 2019/20 Hibla made her world tour with the recital program include masterworks for voice and piano Russian romances and famous classical Italian Arias. She performed in St.Petersburg, Moscow, Paris, London, New York, Toronto, Tel-Aviv. In 2020 Hibla Gerzmava performed in Vienna State Opera as Amelia Grimaldi alongside Placido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. In 2021 she made her debut as Norma at Madrid Royal Theater, and also debuted at Arena di Verona in Verdi’s Requiem. 

Besides a busy operatic career, Hibla developed a unique project of her own – a crossover concert program Opera & Jazz where she brings together classical singing styles with jazz improvisation, performing original and highly distinctive interpretations of music by a wide range of composers including Handel, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti and Gershwin. A national artist of both the Russian Federation and the Republic of Abkhazia, Hibla is a unique phenomenon on the Russian opera stage.