Mariana Arsenova

In July 2008 Mariana Arsenova appeared twice at the Rythalle in Solothurn: once in a large soloists' gala that ranged from Mozart and Bellini to Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Massenet and Tchaikovsky, and once in Mozart's Don Giovanni with the State Opera Rousse. Born in Plovdiv and first trained in midwifery, Arsenova entered the Pancho Vladigerov Music Academy in 1991 in Konstanza Vachkova's opera class and took third prize at the international student chamber-music competition in Enschede. From 1995 she sang at the State Opera in Stara Zagora, where Rosina and Dorabella were her parts, and from 1997 at the Stefan Makedonski State Music Theatre in Sofia, winning the Mimi Balkanska national operetta competition in 2001 and singing Hanna Glawari, Sylva, Mariza, Saffi and Rosalinde, on tours through Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria and Japan. A Crystal Lyre came in 2004 for Angele Didier. She became the theatre's deputy director for artistic affairs in 2010 and director of the State Music and Ballet Centre in Sofia in 2015, adding a master's degree in music-stage direction under Rumen Neykov.