Simona Kodeva

On 4 September 2012, Simona Kodeva sang in Kálmán's Die Csárdásfürstin at the Open Air Theatre in Burgas. Born in Burgas on 27 April 1979, she finished the G. S. Rakovski language school there with Italian and took a master's degree in classical singing in 2004 at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in the class of Blagovesta Karnobatlova-Dobreva, after a year at the Prague-Vienna-Budapest summer academy with Nadezhda Kniplova in 2003. Her prizes include third at the Paraskev Hadjiev academic competition in 2002, second at the Lyubomir Pipkov competition in 2004, the audience prize at the Puldin competition in Plovdiv in 2005, a prize for Bulgarian song at the Hristo Brambarov competition in 2006, first prize at the competition for German and Austrian music in Burgas in 2008 and a special prize at the Gena Dimitrova competition in Pleven in 2009. A scholar of the Raina Kabaivanska foundation, she debuted in June 2006 as the Queen of the Night at the Sofia National Opera.