site.btaSoprano Krassimira Stoyanova for BTA: Bulgaria Has Many Talented Young People Interested in Becoming Opera Singers

In an interview for BTA, Krassimira Stoyanova, one of the leading sopranos of our time, talks about her 27 years on stage. 

She says that she has always wanted to be an opera singer, and it was her first teacher – opera singer at the Plovdiv Opera Elena Baldzhieva – who led her down the path of opera art. 

Asked if it is more difficult to be an artist today compared to when she began her career, Stoyanova says every time has its peculiarities. “The difference today is that there are many opera singers around the world, and all of them want to make money from this profession, which is normal. But it should not all be about the profit; there is also the meaning of our profession: making it so that the music has a special place in our spiritual world,” she argues.

Today, there are many talented young people both in Bulgaria and abroad who want to become opera singers, she tells BTA. Talking about her students, she says their generation is different, they are very adaptive, well-organized and ready to fight for their dreams. She mentions young Bulgarian talents such as Milen Bozhkov, Stefani Krasteva, Emil Pavlov, Gergana Georgieva, Valentin Vatev, and Rossen Nenchev, among others.

“My favourite audience is the one that enjoys the music and values the performers’ work,” she goes on to say. After two years of protective masks and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are happy to once again attend live performances, she comments.

Krassimira Stoyanova was born in Veliko Tarnovo (North Central Bulgaria). She graduated in violin, singing and music pedagogy at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria). She made her professional debut in 1995 at the Sofia National Opera House. 
 
From the Vienna State Opera in 1998, her international career developed rapidly and has taken her to the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, Teatro alla Scala di Milano, the Bastille Paris, and the state operas of Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, and Zürich. She has performed at Rome’s Teatro dell’ Opera, at the Liceu in Barcelona, at the Nederlands Opera in Amsterdam, in Bilbao, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, and at the New Israeli Opera Tel Aviv.
 
Stoyanova's repertoire covers a wide variety of roles, ranging from Belcanto operas, the great Verdi and Puccini heroines, Richard Strauss to the Slavic repertoire.  
 
In 2009, Stoyanova was awarded the prestigious title Kammersängerin der Wiener Staatsoper.