Stefka Evstatieva

Stefka Evstatieva made her Metropolitan debut on 9 April 1984, as Elisabetta in Don Carlo under James Levine. Born in Rousse in 1947 and trained at the National Academy of Music in Sofia in the class of Elena Kiselova, she had sung her first seasons with the Rousse opera from 1971; a second prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1974 and the belcanto grand prize of Belgian radio and television in 1978 opened the western houses to her. Desdemona, Lisa, Tosca and Aida were the other pillars of a Verdi- and Tchaikovsky-centred repertoire heard at the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala and San Francisco. She was heard in Cavalleria rusticana at the Ancient Theatre in Plovdiv in 2002, and from 2004 helped found and advise the Bulgarian children's chorus and school Gergana in the United States. She died in 2025.