The final concert of the 11th Hibla Gerzmava invites… Music Festival that will be held at the Pitsunda Cathedral on August 3 will bring the 2011/12 season to a close. For Hibla, the season had started with a stunning success at the Opéra National de Paris, on the stage of Palais Garnier, one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world, — Hibla made her debut in the magnificent Willy Decker’s production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. Her Paris performances were followed by those at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (in Puccini’s La bohème) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London (marking another Hibla’s debut — in Mozart’s Don Giovanni). Hibla was very happy to appear with solo recitals in a few Russsian cities: Moscow, Kazan, Orenburg, Tomsk, Chelyabinsk and Saratov. This season, Hibla went as far as  Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, taking part in a charity concert to raise funds in support of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Hibla’s every performance at the Moscow Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre was marked with tickets sold out for months and standing ovations. But for Hibla, her most important and most exciting performances always happen in Pitsunda and Sukhum, in her native Abkhazia. She sings and breathes there in a different way, responding to the area’s very special aura and atmosphere… Abkhazia means the Alpha and Omega for Hibla. Here, in her family nest, where she grew up during the Soviet time, are her true friends, Caucasian noisy feast, joy and sorrow, graves of her close friends and relatives, the sun, the sea, the air and folk songs — even now, being a world class artist, Hibla cannot imagine her life without these…