Alma-Lisa Bandalovska

In 2009 Alma-Lisa Bandalovska became the first Bulgarian soprano to sing Salome on a Bulgarian stage, and two years later the Crystal Lyre award came for her Sieglinde in Die Walküre — a line of heavy German roles that also brought her Elsa and Isolde, and that sits beside a lyric repertoire of Mimì, Liù, Cio-Cio-San, Marguerite, Pamina, Donna Elvira and Norma. She graduated in opera singing from the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music, worked afterwards with Ghena Dimitrova, Raina Kabaivanska and Alexandrina Milcheva, and trained formally in the Michael Chekhov acting technique. A silver medal at the Boris Christoff competition in 2004 and second prize at the Hristo Brambarov competition stand in her record, along with Bulgaria's place at Operalia in 2001 and at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2005. She has been a soloist of the Sofia National Opera since 2001, and has sung across France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China; Beethoven's Ninth in Beijing and Janáček's Glagolitic Mass belong to her concert work. For much of her career she was billed as Tsvetana Bandalovska. In 2004 she and Blagovesta Konstantinova gave the complete songs of Wagner for the first time in Bulgaria, and in the same year she sang Beethoven's Ninth in the Forbidden City with the Orchestra of Nations under Justus Frantz. The Ministry of Culture gave her an honorary diploma in 2011 and the Golden Quill award followed in 2016; she has also worked with Salvatore Fisichella and recorded for Bulgarian National Radio and Television. In the 2024–25 season her Sofia Opera roles included Adriana Lecouvreur and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser.