Rumen Doykov

Doykov sang at the Ancient Theatre in Plovdiv on 28 June 2001 in a Verdi Festival gala that also brought Ghena Dimitrova and Nicola Ghiuselev to the Roman stage, and again in Sofia on 23 December 2004, in a festive symphonic concert with Tsvetelina Maldjanska. Doykov was born in Sofia on 1 May 1951 and graduated from the Music Academy there in 1977, a year after his stage debut as Jenik in Smetana's The Bartered Bride at the National Opera, where he became a soloist on taking his diploma; Hoffmann followed in 1979. A prize at the Francesco Paolo Neglia competition in Enna came in 1983. From 1988 to 1992 he sang at the Belgrade Opera, taking on Radames there, the role that shaped the rest of his path: in 1995 he gave forty-three performances of Aida in forty-six days in the Netherlands and sang the opera in the open air in Sao Paulo. His repertoire ran past fifty leading tenor parts, among them Otello, Manrico, Calaf, Cavaradossi, Edgardo, Don Alvaro, Enzo, the Duke and Alfredo. He died in 2022.