Iano Tamar was born in Georgia and studied piano, music and singing at the Tbilisi Conservatory. After her sensational début as Semiramide in Pesaro, she sang Lina in Verdi’s Stiffelio, Alice in Falstaff, and Lady Macbeth at La Scala, Milan, under Riccardo Muti, marking the start of a highly successful stage career.

She was highly acclaimed as Elisabeth de Valois in a new production of the five-act version of Verdi’s Don Carlos, as Elvira in Ernani and as Mathilde in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at the Vienna State Opera, as Marchesa del Poggio in Un giorno di regno at Covent Garden, as Rachel in a new production of La Juive at the Teatro la Fenice, as Tosca in Geneva, as Leonora in Il trovatore at the Bregenz Festival, as Leonora in Il trovatore and in the revival of La forza del destino at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, as Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda at the Opéra de Lyon, as Semiramide and Lady Macbeth at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera in Hamburg and as Norma and as Elettra in Idomeneo at the Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona.