Emil Pavlov

Third in a family line of tenors, Emil Pavlov was born in Veliko Tarnovo in 1992 and came to singing through the clarinet, which he studied at the music school in his home town before taking a degree in classical singing at the National Academy of Music in Sofia in 2015. He began working with Krassimira Stoyanova in 2016. A soloist of State Opera Plovdiv from 2017 and of the Sofia Opera and Ballet from the 2017/18 season, he sings Tamino, Lensky and the lyric roles of Puccini, Verdi and Strauss, with operetta and musical theatre alongside them. He won the Crown of Turnovo European youth competition in 2014 and a special award at the Stoyan Popov international competition for young opera singers in Burgas in 2022. He first appeared on stage as a child, in the youth troupe of the Konstantin Kisimov Music and Drama Theatre in his home town. Operetta has kept its place beside the opera roles — Edwin in Kálmán's Die Csárdásfürstin, Count Tassilo in Gräfin Mariza, Camille de Rossillon in Lehár's Die lustige Witwe — as have Paolino in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and Zorzeto in Wolf-Ferrari's Il campiello. He has sung at the Mozart's Holidays and Days of Music in Balabanov House festivals and has toured Germany, Poland, Russia and Malta. Alfredo, Ishmael in Nabucco, the title role in Don Carlos, Pinkerton, Aegisthus in Elektra and the dancing master in Ariadne auf Naxos are among his parts, and he sang in Pipkov's Yana's Nine Brothers on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. His competition record also includes a third prize and laureate title at the Svetoslav Obretenov national competition, the grand prix of the Art Stars international competition, first prize at the Slavic Bell festival and third place with the audience award at the Wielki Turniej Tenorow in Szczecin.