Vesselina Kasarova

A pianist's training came first: Vesselina Kasarova took her piano diploma before she began to study voice with Ressa Koleva at the Bulgarian State Music Academy. Born in Stara Zagora in 1965, she sang at the Sofia National Opera while still a student, won first prize at Neue Stimmen in 1989 and joined Zurich Opera, where her earliest assignments were the Second Norn and Wellgunde. Vienna came in 1991 with a Rosina that made her a member of the State Opera; the international breakthrough came the following year at Salzburg, taking over the title role of Rossini's Tancredi from Marilyn Horne at short notice. Mozart, Rossini and bel canto define the centre of her work — Sesto, Idamante, Cherubino, Rosina, Tancredi, Romeo, Ruggiero — with Handel's Ariodante and Alcina beside them and, later, Carmen, Charlotte, Dalila, Eboli and Wagner's Venus. She was named female singer of the year at the Echo Klassik in 2003, and holds both the Bavarian and the Austrian titles of Kammersängerin. Her memoir, Ich singe mit Leib und Seele, appeared in 2012, and she has given masterclasses since. She was four when she was put to the piano, and she finished the music high school in her native Stara Zagora before Sofia. More than sixty-five central roles have taken her to Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, the Paris Opera, La Scala and the houses of Geneva, Barcelona, Madrid, Chicago and San Francisco, as well as to the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Rossini festival at Pesaro, and her recordings run past ninety discs.