Nadia Krasteva

Fenena in Nabucco introduced Nadia Krasteva to the Vienna State Opera in September 2002; by the time she left the ensemble in June 2012 she had sung more than thirty roles there — Eboli, Preziosilla, Leonor de Guzman, Sara, Marina, Olga, Suzuki. Born in Sofia, she trained at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music, continued her studies in Vienna and worked in Rome with Anita Cerquetti; her first stage role, in 2001, was Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Stefan Makedonski National Music Theatre, an unlikely doorway into a career of Verdi mezzos. Carmen took her to the Bolshoi in 2008, under Yuri Temirkanov. Eboli was her calling card at San Francisco Opera in 2015/16; Maddalena in Rigoletto was her Covent Garden debut two seasons later and her role again at the Dallas Opera in 2022; Amneris carried her to the Teatro Colón in 2018. La Scala, the Bavarian State Opera, the Metropolitan, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dutch National Opera, the Berlin houses, the Semperoper, Theater an der Wien, the Paris Opera and the Arena di Verona have all had her. She has kept a Bulgarian calendar throughout, singing in Sofia and Varna with the Classic FM Orchestra from 2004.