On Oct. 15, 2026, the Greek National Opera will make its Carnegie Hall debut with a unique program that pays tribute to Nikos Kazantzakis, a Greek writer, journalist, politician, poet and philosopher. Among the vocal soloists on the showcase is Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, who will also be performing in New York City for the first time in numerous years.

Back in 2023, Rachvelishvili spoke publicly about vocal struggles that she was experiencing that put her career on pause. Since then, the mezzo has gradually returned to the world’s major stages, including the Greek National Opera, which has been a major support to her and her family during these challenging times.

Rachvelishvili spoke to OperaWire about her voice, her relationship with Greek National Opera, becoming a Greek citizen, teaching, and returning to her path as an artist after overcoming many challenges.

OperaWire: You’re coming back to New York to perform in concert with the Greek National Opera. Greece is your home now and the Greek National Opera is now your home company. I want to know how this relationship has developed over the last couple of years and what it means to be coming to New York with this company.

Anita Rachvelishvili: Everything started with me working here for the first time. I did “Carmen” with them. The relationship started beautifully because the people at the theater are wonderful. It’s a very professional house, and the way they work is amazing. They’re very organized, they know the repertoire really well, and they treat you like a friend. It’s really special. So I loved it the first time I came.

Then we had other plans, and then COVID happened. After it did, they called me for a couple of concerts, completely free, because it was a horrible period for all the arts. I did a gala in the summer of 2020 and it was a big concert for doctors and nurses. At the dinner afterward I spoke with the people from the theater about all the trouble I was having with my Georgian passport. Over the years it became impossible to travel with a Georgian passport and get visas. It was always difficult and complicated, and it made life really hard for me and my husband. I just spoke about it as you do with friends.

Without telling me anything, they came back to me after a few months and said they had spoken with the president of the country and the Minister of Culture. They asked whether it was possible to grant a special citizenship to a person who does a lot for Greece, which is not even true. I did just a couple of concerts with no payment. I did it because I really love this country. I always felt at home here. The people are great, the weather is great, the food is great. After Italy, which is like my second home, I felt at home in Greece. The people are very kind and very similar to Georgians, very emotional. And they practically gave me one of the best gifts anybody could give me, which was a Greek passport.

In 2021 I was pregnant, and I came here to do a big gala with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov in Athens, at a huge stadium. It was a beautiful concert. I stayed a couple of days afterward, went to the police department where you get your passport, and received my first one. When Liliana was born she became a citizen automatically, which made everything incredibly special for us.

Then the political situation in Georgia became very hard. It wasn’t really safe to stay there if you had an opinion different from the dictatorship we have right now. My husband and I decided the best thing would be to move temporarily, at least while this craziness is happening in Georgia. I was about to do “La Gioconda” here, so we moved, thinking we would see how it went over a couple of months while I did the production. If we really liked it, we would stay. That’s what happened. We came at the beginning of September last year, 2025, and we liked it so much that we rented an apartment and stayed. The beach is 500 meters away, a five-minute walk from our house. The people are very kind, and even though I don’t speak Greek, everybody speaks English and life is easier because of that. They really try to assist you in any way possible. I felt at home right away.

Liliana likes it here. She likes being close to the beach. She’s going to be five at the end of November. When you have a family, you don’t decide things only for yourself. You start to think about the larger picture. For now, at least for the next few years, I think we’re going to be staying here.

I also decided to accept the contract they offered me years ago. They offered it the first year I came, and at the time I refused because my schedule was impossible. Then the pregnancy happened, and the trouble with singing started, and I couldn’t really sing, so my schedule freed up. Years go by, and scheduling is done very far ahead at all the theaters. Since there was not much work, I thought it was a good thing to stay in one place where my daughter goes to school so I can be with her more. So that’s what we did. Now I have a couple of productions a year with them, and I get to choose the period of the rehearsals. They’ve given me a lot of freedom. It’s nice, because while I’m working on those two productions I get to spend time with my family, which is difficult when you travel all the time.

That’s the story behind me and the Greek National Opera, and now I’m part of this concert, which is very important for the culture of this country. The film “Zorba the Greek” is a very important one for their history, and so are the book and the adaptation. They love it. The music from the film is incredible, and they are proud of everything around it. I feel a huge responsibility because it’s in Greek, and it’s beautiful music. It’s more like popular folk music than opera, which is also good, because I can adapt to non-operatic singing, which I’ve done in other projects.

I started working with the pianist, and we are figuring out the language and the precision of the pronunciation in Greek, which is quite difficult. But since I speak Georgian and many other languages, it’s more adaptable for me. I really enjoy the music, and the text is really beautiful. It is a huge responsibility to bring a piece of Greek history to Carnegie Hall and put it there with all the great people who will come to see the concert.

OW: You said the company lets you choose the productions you take part in. How does that process work?

AR: Since I accepted the contract right before the next season was starting, they already had the season planned. So we chose from whatever was planned that year. This year it’s “The Rake’s Progress,” and I’ll be debuting Baba the Turk. I also had to choose between Maddalena in “Rigoletto” and Suzuki in “Butterfly,” and I chose Suzuki because I always wanted to sing that role. I sang it many, many years ago when I was at the conservatory in Tbilisi. I love the music, and I don’t get to sing Puccini at all in my career.

Mezzos don’t really have any roles. It’s all for the soprano. So Suzuki, even though it’s a small role, is still Puccini, which I get to sing, and that makes me very excited. They have more of a Puccini and Mozart year, so there wasn’t a lot to choose from. But we’ve talked about discussing together next year whether to put some more interesting things on stage that I can take part in.

OW: “The Rake’s Progress” is also a really interesting choice. I’m curious about your thoughts on that opera and on Stravinsky, because it’s not something you generally associate with your repertoire either.

AR: Exactly. When they asked whether I would sing it, I said I had never done Stravinsky, or anything close to that kind of music. It’s an interesting experiment. The role is stunning, and the music is so much fun. It’s also in English, which makes it even more interesting for me. I’ve never sung an opera in English. The character is charismatic, with the beard and everything, and this woman is so weird and so strange. I love everything about her. It’s a new production, and I can’t wait to start rehearsals at the end of February.

It’s going to be interesting to be part of music I never did and never even imagined doing. All of the trouble with technique and the body and singing brought me onto a path that is very interesting. I am returning to my path, to my repertoire, but meanwhile these things are incredible.

OW: You just brought up that you’re getting back on your path and into your repertoire. You spoke very publicly about the challenges you had. Who were the people that instrumental in helping you through them?

AR: Many people tried, and there were great teachers who tried to help me. That starts with my teacher, Paata Burchuladze, who is sadly in prison now, and his pianist, Lyudmila Ivanova. She helped me a lot when I completely lost the connection with my body and my voice was low because of the hormonal situation. Then Federico Longhi, an Italian baritone and an amazing person with whom I’ve prepared for many years, helped me a lot.

My husband is the only person who was really able to understand where the trouble was starting and how we could adjust it. He has assisted me for the 10 years we’ve been together, and he follows me everywhere. His ear knows my voice better than anybody in this world. He was able to help me not only vocally and technically but also physically, because my body wasn’t working after the natural birth. He helped me with workouts, to adjust my body, put it in line, and feel the breathing and the diaphragm. With Otari’s help we made huge progress. We started unifying the voice again and reaching the high notes again.

Then Michael Paul entered the picture a few months ago, and I think we started working together in March. We worked very hard. I kept working by myself and with my husband and with Michael, a couple of times a week every month. It has been a longer journey than I expected, because more than a technical issue, at some point I understood that I had a crazy fear of going back to the stage. In that fear and panic I was losing control. I wasn’t thinking about what my body had to do. I was just afraid of being back on stage, afraid I wouldn’t take the note right or sing it right.

At some point that fear disappeared, because I forced myself to go there and do it, even though sometimes it doesn’t work. I told myself I had to go back and do it. And it worked. I did “Il trovatore” in Madrid, which was not perfect yet, but it was a very courageous step to do a role like Azucena, which is high and difficult. Then Dalila in September in Wrocław went really well. That was a big win for me. I was able to do Dalila beautifully and control myself, and feeling in control on stage again was a wonderful feeling. Now I have a recital coming up, which I’m excited for.

So there are all these small things here and there, taking some breaks to re-concentrate and rearrange my body. More than that, it was a very big psychological battle I had to go through. I will be going back to my old repertoire as soon as I feel that when I’m doing it by myself, with the help of Otari and Michael, it works ten times out of ten. If it works that way, then it will work on stage. Otherwise I will still have fear of bringing it on stage.

OW: A lot of times when singers are going through trouble, they back off and don’t say anything until after the fact. You went very public about it while you were still struggling through it. What motivated that decision?

AR: First of all, nobody talks about this. I know colleagues who gave birth and went through a period of trouble afterward. I know that personally, because they told me or because I saw it, but nobody talks about it. In the opera world it’s like a taboo to speak about vocal troubles. I don’t know why. We are not machines, we are human beings. We all go through so much suffering and sacrifice in our careers. It’s such a difficult job, and you’re doing it alone all the time.

When I was pregnant, I asked so many colleagues who had children for advice. What should I do? Nobody shared any information with me. I was unprepared. What could happen was totally unknown to me. I imagined you might go through some trouble with the body, but nobody talked about anything. They hide it and go through it in silence. They don’t say why they’re canceling things. That made me feel obligated to speak about it, because I know many women go through the same thing but don’t talk about it for fear of being judged. I thought it was important to share, so that people know why these things can happen. It can happen to anybody, and not only because of pregnancy. A singer can have some other kind of trouble, stop feeling the body, and need to relearn everything.

It’s important that we speak about it so that we can share with each other how to face these problems, not only physically, how to reactivate your body and make it work, but also psychologically. A person can go through so many difficulties. Feeling that nobody understands what I was going through was horrible. I was lucky to have people in my house who understood the situation and went through it with me, and to have a husband who understood it from every point of view. I also had some great friends who were there for me. But not everybody has that, and not everybody is able to find psychological help or support. We need to speak about these things loudly. It’s not a taboo, and it’s not something we need to hide. If we need to share it, we should. It’s very important.

OW: You just did a teaching program with Greek National Opera. Where did the idea for that come from? You previously told me you were inspired by the women you were working with. I want to know what you learned from the experience.

AR: The idea came from my own experience. I wanted to share not only the great things I went through in my career, working with the greatest conductors, directors, colleagues and musicians. First of all, I wanted to share what I’ve learned through the years about music, technique, interpretation, the style of every composer, how to choose repertoire, voice type, and how to control the technique. I wanted to share what I learned from so many teachers, conductors and directors.

I also wanted to share my empathy for all the trouble young singers go through nowadays, with how difficult opera is right now financially. There is not much work, and honestly there is no support for young singers. I wanted to show them that if they work hard enough, it can be done. And they were incredible. They were all hardworking and smart and musical, with beautiful voices and incredible artistry. It’s hard to see young people struggling. When I started, it wasn’t that difficult. It was more accessible, and agents were looking much more for new talent and were more attentive to emails. Now they all told me that they send emails and nobody reads them, nobody watches their videos, nobody is interested. So I wanted to help in any way I could. We even spoke about psychology. We did lots of hugging, lots of crying, and lots of honest talking.

I also wanted it to be only women, because they felt more secure among women. We felt freer, and we felt we could express ourselves without judgment. That happened, which is incredible. While choosing the applicants I read all their CVs and spoke with them by email, and I tried to understand who was suited to an environment without judgment. That means you can crack a note and there will still be no judgment, and you can feel comfortable whatever you’re wearing, without makeup, not too perfect, just relaxed in a working environment where you feel safe. That was my first goal when choosing the applicants: to create an environment where sharing is safe, and where cracking a note and singing badly is absolutely safe. I know how it feels when part of an aria, or part of your voice, doesn’t work and you feel someone will judge you. There was absolutely no judgment during those two weeks. At least that’s what they told me, and it’s what I felt myself.

I felt safe sharing everything. There was a period when I wasn’t singing well and I was afraid of opening my mouth and making a sound. Being with them and feeling safe, I was no longer afraid of showing them how you don’t do the note and then how you do it. Every time I would think, “Oh my God, will it come out?” And it was coming out, because I wasn’t afraid and I knew they would not judge me if something wasn’t working.

So that was my goal, to create an environment for young singers, and some of them were my age, not even that young, with problems they had already gone through in their lives. One woman had completely lost her connection with her body, like me. I knew exactly how to help her, not only technically but psychologically, how to make her feel safe singing again. I chose her because she was my age, had gone through a very similar experience, and has a beautiful mezzo voice. That was so important for all of us.

As I told them at the end, they were all wonderful. I have goosebumps now speaking about this experience. I told them I learned so much from them, and I felt so good working with them and making music. We also had an incredible pianist, so comfortable and such a wonderful musician. Then I discovered he has a singer wife, and I understood why he was so comfortable with us around.

It was an incredible experience. I’m planning to do it again, maybe a couple of times a year or more, because I absolutely enjoyed it. I was exhausted, because I was on my feet from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., always standing, with only a half-hour lunch break. But that exhaustion felt incredibly good when I came home. I thought about all the work we had done in those two weeks and how much progress every one of them made. I was proud of myself, and it made me feel very good.