Darina Takova

Semiramide, Lucia di Lammermoor, Lucrezia Borgia, Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda: from her international debut in 1992 Darina Takova sang these title roles, with Amina in La sonnambula, the Queen of the Night and Violetta beside them. Winner of the Francesc Viñas competition in Barcelona and the Toti Dal Monte in Treviso, she had left the National Opera in Sofia — where she spent six seasons from 1989 — for an international career built on bel canto. She was born in Sofia in 1963 and trained at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music with Mati Pinkas and Mila Dyulgerova. She sang at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, the Vienna and Bavarian state operas, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, under Muti, Abbado and Mehta among others. Since leaving the stage in 2007 she has taught — masterclasses in Bulgaria and abroad, a foundation of her own for young singers set up in the same year, and mentoring for Operosa since 2013. Her United States debut came in 1997 with appearances in California and Detroit, followed by the Metropolitan Opera as Marguerite in Faust. Her La Scala debut, in 1998, was as the Queen of the Night under Riccardo Muti, and she returned there for Lucrezia Borgia; earlier she had sung the title role of Verdi's Luisa Miller in Germany and Switzerland in 1995, Gilda at the Roman summer festival, and Arabella and Rigoletto in Geneva. Alberto Zedda and Victor Pablo Perez are among the other conductors she has worked with, and prizes in Lisbon and Sofia stand beside the Barcelona and Treviso awards. In 2020 she joined the Boris Christoff Academy in Rome as its head vocal coach, and the Boris Christoff competition stands among the prizes she won.