Metonidze Concert for Flood Victims Wows Audience

“Grief and Sorrow does not quit us, but still, we laugh, instead of crying” - extract from one of songs, conveying the Georgian spirit

Among a number of charity concerts being staged to help those affected by the Tbilisi flood, Nato Metonidze’s solo program was one of the most remarkable at Tbilisi Concert Hall on June 30 and July 1. The immortal tunes by classical Georgian composers, and virtuoso performing of Nika Rachveli on piano together with the national Symphonic Orchestra and the vision of famous and already renowned stage director Davit Doiashvili, wowed spectators.

Starting with Mozart’s “Requiem”, the show was difficult to be genre-defined with elements of classical and drama evident. Together with the soloist, actresses from the Music and Drama Theater took part, as well as a special guest – former soloist of Sukhishvili National Ballet, Tea Darchia. The actresses represented the thoughts of a human being, which are often contradictory. The performance called “Intro-spection” was divided into cantos, starting with the prologue. Here, the story starts from a Soviet childhood and continues with the music school, followed by the famous children’s ensemble Mziuri, before a depiction of the traumatic 1990s when Georgia struggled in the early days of independence. The leitmotif of the performance is a phrase from childhood: “When you are desperate, look up into the sky, and you will guess, that these are not mere clouds, but the white horses, that lead you to the magic world where they sing splendidly.”

The whole program is based on Georgian movie music. The first song Metonidze sang was that of Ioseb Bardanashvili from the film “Everyone Wishes Love” followed by Revaz Laghidze’s theme from “Khevisberi Gocha”, Alexander Rakviashvili’s song “Beat the drums” from the movie “Mziuri”, Davit Toradze’s music from the feature film “Are all Humans Men?”, Bidzina Kvernadze’s theme from the film “White Flags”, and Manana Menabde’s song from the film “Day has always lit the night.” There was only one newly written theme which was by Nika Rachveli titled “Guria Mountains”. The program ended with Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s Bashiachuki song from the movie of the same name.

“This is the introspection, passed by one person, and as it reaches the present time, we could not possibly neglect such a serious event as the natural disaster is, that reverberates in our memory. Therefore, we have changed the finale and end the show with this episode,” Davit Doiashvili told journalists just before the show.

Metonidze, a marvelous singer, also commented: “The project implies in itself to tell my story, but it has nothing to do with my private tales. This is our route since our birth until today. While following this path of events, it turned out that we very much touched all the political pitfalls that took place in the near past in our country. We could not avoid politics, because it used to and still occupies such a big role that without mentioning it, our tale would not be complete. We named it ‘intro-spection’ because we do not convey the mere information, but we aim to express our emotions towards particular events, show the attitude of our trio – me, Doi [Davit Doiashvili], and Nika [Nikoloz Rachveli]. The story is told by me together with actresses, but you will find out that this is the story of all of us, [Georgians].”

“Nato Metonidze is one of the main heroines in my private as well as my creative life. We have been friends and partners for 12 years now, since the first solo-concert of hers. So, this project turned out to be too sensitive for both of us,” Nika Rachveli told Georgia Today.

There were two musical themes from the theatre too: Gia Kancheli’s music from legendary performances of “Richard the Third” and “Khanuma”, staged by Robet Sturua. The main surprise for the audience was the debut of Nika Rachveli in the part of a singer and an actor playing the part of Nato’s sweetheart, which was met with a stream of applause.

Maka Lomadze