Gita Elibekyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Tbilisi
Gevorg Petrosyan, a Tbilisi-based Armenian, who stunned the jury at Georgia’s Got Talent, continues to work as taxi driver, but still cheers the dream that he will once be invited to sing. Friends call him Caruso for his outstanding vocal, but he has been deprived of the opportunity to sing for ten years.
Almost everyone in Tbilisi’s Ortachala district knows taxi driver Gevorg Petrosyan. The 38-year-old man says he’s always pleased to sing for passengers.
“Of course, I like to sing. If someone can drive a taxi well, he should drive, if he sings well, he must sing. I like singing because it’s beautiful, and the God-given beauty cannot but be appreciated. My passengers like me singing and even pay more,” Gevorg said, speaking to Public Radio of Armenia.
Gevorg was 15, when he found out he had a strong voice. “I was already working then. I was repairing tires at the time. When I first heard classical music, it impressed me, and I tried to do the same. Those, who heard me, said I should continue in that direction,” he said.
Gevorg later entered and graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatory after V. Sarajishvili, participated in a number of competitions and even performed at the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
“At the time I had not graduated from the conservatory yet. Everyone thought I would become a great singer soon. There were all prerequisite for this – vocal, health, etc.”
Why didn’t he become a famous singer and started to drive a taxi in the end? “I badly wanted to sing, but I had to earn my living. I started doing what I could do well, but I was in deep depression.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses were quick to persuade the promising young singer that everything would settle if he attended their meetings. Gevorg spend ten years in the sect with no right to think about the stage.
“I was told I could not serve the God and Mammon at the same time.” Being part of the organization in the course of 10 years, he studied and revealed that there were many inconsistencies in their beliefs. “Everything was thought out.”
“I’m so sorry for those years. I could be a famous singer now.” It’s several month now that Perosyan has quit as Jehovah’s Witness and “has returned from prison,” as his brother Alen says.
“I’m very sad for the ten year losts. We didn’t speak that long, but we have reconciled now,” Alen said. It was my advice to participate in the Got Talent. He participated in the show, received standing ovations and won the hearts of everyone in Georgia. Now we hope for offers,” he added.
Alen believes that even at the age of 38 it is still possible to make up the leeway like Italian tenor Franco Corelli did.
The Georgian Armenian “Caruso” wants to start new life and start singing. Today he still drives a taxi in Tbilisi, but hopes to get an offer one day and exchange keys for a microphone.
