Georgian National Opera Theater

Stand on the pavement of Rustaveli Avenue for a moment and listen. Traffic hums behind you, and footsteps tap across the stone. Then lift your eyes to the facade in front of you. Pointed arches, slender columns, and bands of carved ornament catch the light. This does not look like the opera houses of Vienna or Milan. It looks more like a palace from Andalusia or Cairo. This is the Georgian National Opera and Ballet Theatre of Tbilisi.

The style you are looking at is called Moorish Revival. It is a nineteenth-century European fashion that borrowed the forms of Islamic architecture from Spain and North Africa. Horseshoe arches, geometric patterns and delicate carved screens were its signatures. In Tbilisi the style made a particular kind of sense. The city sits at a crossroads between Europe and Asia. For centuries Persian, Ottoman, Russian and Georgian worlds met in these streets. A building that mixes East and West fits the city very well.

The story of opera in Tbilisi begins earlier than this building. Professional opera came to the city in 1851. In those years Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, and Tbilisi was its main administrative centre in the Caucasus. The first theatre was not on this avenue at all. It stood in a caravanserai on the square that is now called Freedom Square. A caravanserai was a large trading inn, where merchants rested with their goods and animals. So the first arias in this city were sung inside a building made for trade.

That first theatre did not last. A fire destroyed it in the 1870s, and the city needed a new home for its music. The answer is the building in front of you. It was designed by Viktor Schröter, an architect who worked in Saint Petersburg. The new theatre opened in 1896. At that time Rustaveli Avenue was becoming the main street of the city. Grand public buildings rose along its length, and this theatre became one of the most important among them.

Take a closer look at the details of the facade. The windows do not sit in simple rectangles. Many of them are framed by arches with a soft point at the top. Around the edges, carved patterns repeat in steady rhythms, like the patterns on a carpet. The stone is warm in tone, and it changes colour through the day. In the morning it looks pale. In the late afternoon it turns golden. If you have time, come back at a different hour and compare.

Now for a fact that many visitors miss. This theatre carries the name of a composer, Zakaria Paliashvili. He is often called the founder of the Georgian national school of classical music. His opera Abesalom and Eteri is based on an old Georgian folk legend about tragic love. Another opera, Daisi, is also a central part of the Georgian repertoire. Here is the surprise. Paliashvili is buried right here, in the garden of the theatre. The man who gave Georgia its national opera rests beside the stage he wrote for.

Think about what that means for the people who work here. Singers and dancers walk past his grave on their way to rehearsals. Few theatres in the world keep their founding composer so close. It gives the building the feeling of a family home as much as a public institution. For Georgians, Paliashvili's music is not only art. It carries folk melodies, old church harmonies and the sound of village songs into the concert hall.

The twentieth century was not gentle with this building. In 1973 a serious fire broke out and caused heavy damage inside. The theatre was restored, and performances returned. But by the early twenty-first century the building needed much deeper work. Its stage machinery was old, and many interior details had faded. So the theatre closed for a long renovation. It reopened in early 2016 with its historic look restored and modern technical equipment behind the scenes.

If you can see inside, pay attention to the auditorium. The Moorish style continues there, with rich ornament, deep colours and gilded detail. The hall is horseshoe-shaped, with tiers of boxes rising around the stalls. This shape is classic for European opera houses. It brings the audience close to the stage and helps the sound travel. The decoration is Eastern, but the plan is European. Once again, the building joins two worlds together.

Opera is only half of the story here. Georgia also has a deep ballet tradition. Georgian folk dance is famous for its speed, its high leaps, and its dancers spinning on their knees. That energy fed into classical ballet. The great Georgian dancer Vakhtang Chabukiani built much of the national ballet in the twentieth century. In more recent decades, the internationally known ballerina Nina Ananiashvili has led the ballet company here. So when you see the word ballet on the posters, remember that it has strong local roots.

Now turn around and look at the avenue itself. Rustaveli Avenue is named after Shota Rustaveli, the medieval poet who wrote The Knight in the Panther's Skin. That long poem is the great classic of Georgian literature. Along this street you will find the parliament building, theatres, museums and cafes. The opera house is part of a line of public buildings that shows how the city wanted to present itself. Music, poetry, politics and daily life all share the same pavement.

Notice the people around you, too. On performance evenings, the steps fill with audiences dressed for a night out. Some people are in elegant clothes, others in jeans and a warm coat. Young people meet friends under the arches. Older couples arrive early and talk quietly near the entrance. During the day, the scene is calmer. Students pass by, tourists stop for photographs, and taxis pull up along the curb.

Here is a second small surprise. Many visitors walk straight past the side of the building without looking. But the long side walls show how big the theatre really is. From the front it can seem compact, almost delicate. From the side you understand that a large stage house sits behind the facade. That stage needs space for scenery, machinery and a full orchestra pit. The decoration is light, but the building itself is heavy and serious.

Before you move on, stand still for one more moment. Look at the arches against the sky, and the carved stone around the windows. Listen to the city around you, the cars, the voices, the wind along the avenue. Somewhere behind these walls, perhaps, a singer is warming up, or dancers are counting steps in a rehearsal room. And in the quiet garden, Paliashvili rests close to the music he wrote. As you walk away down Rustaveli Avenue, glance back once. The facade looks different from a distance, and in the changing light it will keep its colour a little longer.