Paata Burchuladze

Paata Burchuladze (Georgian: პაატა ბურჭულაძე) (born 12 February 1955) is a Georgian operatic bass and civil activist. After his debut in his native Tbilisi in 1976, he embarked on a 35-year-long musical career during which he made appearances at leading opera houses across Europe and the United States. Through his foundation, he became involved in children charity in Georgia in 2004. From May to December 2016, Burchuladze briefly entered politics of Georgia, founding the political party State for the People to challenge the incumbent Georgian Dream coalition government in the scheduled October 2016 parliamentary election, in which the party failed to win any seat in the legislature. Since July 2017, Burchuladze has been leading the opera division of Moscow's Mikhailovsky Theatre, one of Russia's oldest opera and ballet houses.

Born in Tbilisi, the capital of then-Soviet Georgia, he graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatoire and continued his studies at the Bolshoi school. He made a student debut in Tbilisi in 1976 and then took part in several singing competitions, including at the Bolshoi in Moscow, where he sang in Boris Godunov. Early in his career, Burchuladze sang Leporello (Don Giovanni), Prince Gremin (Eugene Onegin), and King Rene (Iolanta) for the Tbilisi Opera House. Burchuladze was further trained in Milan from 1978 to 1981 and sang Banquo, Pagano (I Lombardi), Walter (Luisa Miller) and Zaccaria (Nabucco) at La Scala.