Калуди Калудов

Principal tenor of the Sofia National Opera from 1978 until 1989, Kaludov trained at the State Academy of Music in Sofia with Liliana Zhablenska and went on working with the tenor Nicola Nicolov, collecting prizes at competitions in Sofia, Geneva, Athens and Moscow. The Vienna State Opera heard him in 1984 as Foresto in Attila, and from there the guest engagements spread: La Scala, the German houses, France, Spain, Finland, Russia, Poland, the United States, Japan. His roles included Alfredo, the Duke, Manrico, Don Carlos, Radamès, Cavaradossi, Pinkerton, Rodolfo, Calaf and Don José, and he sang alongside Plácido Domingo and under Claudio Abbado and Zubin Mehta. Complete operas and concert works survive on Sony, Decca and Naxos. He has taught in Plovdiv and Sofia and directed the Viva il canto festival in Cieszyn, and has worked with young singers. His stage debut came in 1978, as Alfredo in La traviata. He moved to Poland in 1990 and sang at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw, founded the Cieszyn festival two years later and began teaching at the Music Academy in Katowice in 2003, with master classes in Poland, Italy and Bulgaria from 1994 onwards. A disc issued in Poland, O, zvezda Vitleemska, brought him a Golden Record. He was born on 15 March 1953 in the village of Lyuben Karavelovo and sang in the newly formed ensemble of the naval forces from 1971; the Plovdiv stage saw his Alfredo in January 1978, and La Scala heard him first in 1985, with Attila there in 1991 and Manon Lescaut in 1992. From 1994 he sang at the Savonlinna festival in Finland, singing in Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Aida, La forza del destino and Der fliegende Holländer, and his repertoire has included more than sixty tenor roles. Varna has made him an honorary citizen.