Svilen Nikolov

Violin came before voice: Svilen Nikolov studied both at the Dobri Hristov National School of Arts in Varna, the city where he was born in 1979, and completed a master's degree with Konstantsa Vachkova at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in Sofia in 2002. He was still a student when he first sang Papageno, on stages in Burgas and Plovdiv with the educational opera theatre; in May 2004 he joined the Varna opera as a soloist and has been with the company since. Prizes at the Russian Song festival in Burgas in 2002 and, the following year, at the Hopes, Talents, Masters competition in Albena and the Katya Popova competition in Pleven - later renamed for Gena Dimitrova - marked the beginning. The baritone roles have accumulated steadily since: Germont, Marquis Posa, Ford, Belcore, Doctor Malatesta, Enrico, Sharpless, Marcello, Masetto, Lord Ashton, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Dandini, Count Almaviva, Morales and Dancairo in Carmen, Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar, the High Priest in Samson et Dalila, Gunther in Gotterdammerung and the title role in Prince Igor. He has sung in Austria, Germany, Spain, France, South Korea, China, Cyprus, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.