Ghena Dimitrova
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Ghena Dimitrova (Bulgarian: Гeна Димитpова) (6 May 1941–11 June 2005) was a Bulgarian operatic soprano. Her voice was known for its power and extension used in operatic roles such as Turandot in a career spanning four decades.
[edit] Early career
Ghena Dimitrova was born in the Bulgarian village of Beglezh, some 25 km from Pleven, in 1941. She started singing in the school choir and her powerful voice led to her being offered a place at the Sofia Conservatory studying under Cristo Brambarov between 1959 and 1964. While she was initially classified as a mezzo-soprano, she was recognised as a soprano in her second year.
After finishing her studies at the Sofia Conservatory, she started teaching singing. Her breakthrough came in 1967 as Abigaille in a Bulgarian National Opera production of Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco after a couple of other sopranos dropped out. Dimitrova learned the demanding role in a week.[citation needed] In the early recordings Dimitrova's voice had not yet reached its signature size, and in many of the early Nabucco productions, the final optional high C is omitted in the cabaletta, Salgo già, which she would include later in her career.
[edit] International career
Dimitrova won the Sofia International Singing Competition in 1970, the prize including a course of study at La Scala's Scuola di Perfezionamento.
She made her Italian debut as Turandot in Treviso in 1975, and essayed the same role for her 1983 La Scala debut opposite tenor Plácido Domingo in Franco Zeffirelli's lavish production. Her Turandot is also preserved in a video of the Arena di Verona production from 1983, with Nicola Martinucci and Cecilia Gasdia. In 1988, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York performing the same role.
Dimitrova once said of the role: "Turandot may not be my favorite part, but it shows off the voice to great advantage. The way the music is written, you need a voice like a trumpet to do it justice."
In 1968, after winning the Verdi Competition in Busseto, she went on in 1972 to win the Treviso competition, after which an international career quickly developed. Her debut with the Vienna State Opera was in 1978. As a regular guest at the Arena di Verona between 1980 and 1983 she sang Aida, Gioconda and Turandot. Following Turandot in La Scala in 1983 came performances at the Salzburg Festival in 1984 as Lady Macbeth, Covent Garden as Turandot, and the Paris Grand Opera in 1987 as Norma. in 1987 Ghena Dimitrova sang Aida at the Temple of Luxor in Egypt with additional performances in Buenos Aires, Munich, Berlin and other major opera stages of the world
Her debut in the United States was in 1981 performing the role of Elvira in Ernani. She sang at the Barbican Arts Centre in Ponchielli's La Gioconda in 1983 before making her Covent Garden debut in the same year. Her late debut she later attributed simply to "politics". In New York she sang Abigaille in 1984 and in 1988 debuted with the Metropolitan Opera as Turandot and later as Santuzza, Additional appearances were on most of major stages of the United States.
During the years 1971/72 the singer performed in the role of Leonora from “La Forza del Destino”, really in all France. In 1972 she won the Treviso competition, interpreting Amelia in “Un ballo in maschera”, which immediately opened to her the doors of the Parma Regio theater, where she interpreted the same opera with Jose Carreras and Pierro Cappuccilli, and subsequently (January 1973) those of La Scala, where she found herself interpreting the Verdi title together with Placido Domingo.
The great international carrier of Ghena Dimitriva had taken off. Between 1974 and 1979 she sang in the major theaters in South America, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
Her repertoire enlarged, containing operas, that live in the dreams ( and sometimes, for the difficulty, in the nightmares) of every soprano: Aida, il Trovatore, Tosca, Andrea Chenier, Turandot, Ernani, Cavalleria rusticana, Manon Lescaut, La Fanciulla del West, Macbeth, Otello. The destiny of great lyrico-drammatic soprano was signed.
In 1980 the carrier of Ghena Dimitrova had the appointment that would have definitely given her a place between the great voices of the after war period. At the Arena di Verona the singer interpreted together with Luciano Pavarotti, La Gioconda, and in the role that had seen the Italian debut of Maria Callas on the same place in 1947, created a sensation. The Arena adopted her; she would interpret after that Nabucco(1981), Macbeth(1982), since 1983 Turandot, practically on every reproposal of the Puccini’s opera, Cavalleria Rusticana (1993), and Aida (1993), and she returned in 1996 once more as Amneris.
Ghena Dimitrova was already accredited between the most prestigious voices in the world. La Scala entrusted her the great deal of three season openings with Turandot (1983, under the direction of Lorin Maazel, and with the fantastic Franco Zeffirelli scenography), Aida ( alternating bravely in the roles of Amneris and Aida by the side of Luciano Pavarotti), and Nabucco (1986, the opera that saw the Riccardo Muti debut as musical director of the Milan opera temple).
Ghena Dimitrova interpreted there as well “I lombardi alla prima Crociata” (1984), “McBeth” ( directed by Abbado and with the famous scenography of Giorgio Strehler), Cavalleria Rusticana (1988) and Tosca (1989), but in the meanwhile all the theaters in Italy from Parma to Florence, from Rome to Naples, had opened wide their doors to her, charmed by the might and the ductility of the voice, that seemed not to have equal.
Salzburg wanted her for its festival for two consecutive years (1984 and 1985) with McBeth, while her presence at the Vienna Staatsoper became almost a fixed constant. In 1987 after having docked it in Houston, Naples, Francfurt, she won an important challenge in the Opera House of Paris, interpreting Norma.
In the same year she finally arrived at the Metropolitan, the last of the “avamposti lirici”, that the soprano hadn’t already taken by storm. , in New York she interpreted her battle horse for excellence, Turandot, for ten seasons, two of which with Pavarotti and Levine; and returned for La Gioconda, Cavalleria Rusticana, Tosca and La fanciulla del West.
Who listens attentively to the voice of Dimitrova, even on her sound records, beyond the most obvious impression of an instrument of exceptional might, cannot remain insensitive in front of the effort of the singer to make the voice lighter, to give an expressive colour and interior intensity to the sound. Her La Scala Abigaille, under the direction of Muti is a magisterial example of how this role should be interpreted; with all the arrogance and vocal insolence that it requires, but certainly with the necessary mildness, with all the hidden pain of a soul became rigid, because of the lack of affection. The incredible extension of her voice, consents to Mrs. Dimitrova to alternate roles for soprano and mezzosoprano even in the same opera, as in the example of Aida and Amneris, or of Elisabeth and Eboli in Don Carlo, a role, the last one, debuted in the United States as testimony that the artist feels never ready enough, nevertheless an intense and already very long carrier. This year in fact is properly the thirty fifth anniversary of the debut of this great singer that with intelligence has managed to construct a carrier yet storical, and connecting inseparably her name to characters as Abigaille, Lady McBeth and mostly Turandot, becoming an interpreter of absolute reference of her time. The thirty five years of carrier stand to testify the complete mastery, which is necessary even to an exceptionally gifted voice for being able to pass trough such a heavy carrier, and to maintain a vocal freshness that permits to sing even today all the operas in the repertoire, even those sang during the youth and may be less executed as I Masnadieri by Verdi, a role almost for a light soprano, and so distant from Gioconda, Santuzza and Tosca, that for recorded, has been sang in absolute majority of executions.
Because.of the inexhaustible capacity and sonority of her voice and the mastering of the Italian language, she was a favorite in the dramatic soprano roles of Abigaille, Turandot, Lady Macbeth, Gioconda, Aida, Maddalena in Andrea Chenier and Elvira in Ernani. Later in her career, because of the great range of her voice, she would add the mezzo roles of Amneris and Eboli to her repertoire.
After retiring from the stage in 2001, Dimitrova remained active working with young singers. One of her best students is the soprano Elena Baramova.
Dimitrova died in Milan on 11 June 2005. After her death the Bulgarian Government promised to establish a fund in her name for promising young singers.
