Orlin Goranov

Orlin Goranov came out of the Bodra Smyana children's choir in Sofia and graduated from the Bulgarian State Conservatory in 1990 in the class of Konstanza Vachkova, having already won the national Youth Song Contest in 1978 and Golden Orpheus in 1984. From 1989 he sang as a soloist of the Plovdiv Opera — Rodolfo in La bohème, Cavaradossi in Tosca, and the Verdi tenor parts — and from 1994 held a standing engagement at Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast. The unusual thing is that neither half of the career displaced the other. He remained one of the most widely recognised popular singers in the country, a fixture of the Melody of the Year contests from 1986 and a prize-winner at the Dresden Schlagerfestival in 1981, while continuing to sing on the opera stage; later he became a familiar television presence, hosting a quiz programme from 2020. His Plovdiv years brought a long working association with Nayden Todorov, including a United Kingdom tour of Tosca in 2002.