Vano Sarajishvili was an outstanding Georgian opera singer (lyric tenor), one of the key figures in the formation of professional operatic art in Georgia.
Sarajishvili was born in 1879 into a teacher’s family.
From 1887 he lived in Tbilisi, where until 1895 he studied at the Tiflis Noble Gymnasium.
In 1898, Sarajishvili enrolled in the Tiflis Music School, where he learned to play the cello.
In 1903 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he studied singing.
Sarajishvili made his debut in 1907, performing the role of Alfredo in the opera La Traviata at the Panayevsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
In 1908 he performed at La Scala in Milan, and later appeared in Turin, Parma, Trieste, Paris, and Nice (where the writer A. Kuprin heard him perform).
In 1908 singer returned to Tbilisi and became a prominent figure on the Georgian opera stage.
In 1913, Vano Sarajishvili participated in the performance of new excerpts from Paliashvili’s opera Abesalom and Eteri (singing the role of Abesalom), after which he often appeared in Paliashvili’s operas.
In 1923 he was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR.
Sarajishvili died in 1924 and was buried near the opera house in Tbilisi.