Tsintsadze, Sulkhan

Born Aug. 23, 1925, in Gori. Soviet composer. People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR (1961).

Tsintsadze graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied cello with S. M. Kozolupov in 1950 and composition with S. S. Bogatyrev in 1953. His compositions include the operas The Golden Fleece (1952) and The Hermit (staged 1972; based on the narrative poem by I G. Chavchavadze) and the ballets The Treasure of the Blue Mountain (staged 1957) and The Demon (staged 1961; based on the narrative poem by Iu. M. Lermontov); the last three works received their premieres at the Georgian Theater of Opera and Ballet.

Tsintsadze composed the ballet Sketches of Antiquity (1974) and the operettas The Spiderweb (staged 1963) and Song in the Forest (staged 1968), both of which received their premieres at the Tbilisi Theater of Musical Comedy. He has written three symphonies, the second of which he later reworked as the ballet Poem (staged 1963 at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theater). Other notable works include piano and violin concerti; Immortality (1970), an oratorio written to honor the centennial of V. I. Lenin’s birth; eight string quartets; and music for such motion pictures as The Dragonfly, The Squabbler, Otar’s Widow, and The Father of a Soldier.

In 1965, Tsintsadze became rector of the Tbilisi Conservatory. Tsintsadze received the State Prize of the USSR in 1950 and the Z. P. Paliashvili Prize in 1974; he has been awarded two orders and various medals.