Radostina Nikolaeva

Sofia heard her first: Radostina Nikolaeva sang in Bizet's Carmen and in Verdi's Don Carlo at the Sofia Opera in 2003, and three years later in La traviata at Rousse. In 2009 she took part in a performance of Nayden Andreev's Molenie at Yaroslavl, adding a contemporary Bulgarian vocal-symphonic score to a repertoire otherwise centred on French opera and mature Verdi. She was born in Ruse in 1974 and studied voice at the Pancho Vladigerov State Academy of Music until 2001, taking a masterclass with Anna Tomowa-Sintow in 2006. Her stage debut came in 1998 at the State Opera in Ruse, as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. She took third prize at the Boris Christoff international competition for young opera singers in 2004 and third again at an opera competition in Rome in 2005, and she joined the ensemble of the Sofia Opera, where she first appeared in 2004 as Liu in Turandot. Violetta, Aida, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, Desdemona, Mimi and Tosca have entered her repertoire, and she has sung in Macedonia, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and Japan.