Dimitriadi, Odissei Akhillesovich

Born June 24 (July 7), 1908, in Batumi. Soviet conductor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1958).

Dimitriadi graduated from the Tbilisi Conservatory (class of composition) in 1930 and from the Leningrad Conservatory (class of conducting) in 1936. In 1937 he became a conductor at the Georgian Theater of Opera and Ballet and was chief conductor there from 1952 to 1965. He was also chief conductor of the symphony orchestra of the Georgian SSR from 1947 to 1952. He became a conductor at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in 1965. Dimitriadi participated in the production of various operas at the Georgian Theater of Opera and Ballet, including Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride (1938), Paliashvili’s Abesalom and Eteri (1953), Toradze’s Bride of the North (1958), and Prokofiev’s Semen Kotko (1964). He also took part in the staging of many ballets, including Balanchivadze’s Heart of the Mountains (1940) and Machavariani’s Othello (1958). He has been awarded two orders and various medals.