Soprano
Biography
Evenings at the State Opera Rousse in 2006 placed Violeta Shahanova beside Evgeny Ganev, Dimiter Kyurkchiev, Stoyan Stoyandzhov and Evgeny Arabadjiev, and on one occasion beside the tenor Kaludi Kaludov. Born in Rousse on 23 February 1948, Shahanova finished the music school of her native town, studied at the Pancho Vladigerov academy in Sofia and took further training with the Romanian baritone Octav Enigarescu in Bucharest. Her debut roles, Carolina in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and Louisa in Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery, opened a Rousse career of more than seventy parts, most of them created at premieres, among them Mimi and Musetta, Marguerite, Susanna, Pamina, Donna Elvira, Adina and Norina. She gave the Bulgarian first performance of Verdi's Lina in Stiffelio in 1996 and, in March 2007, the first staging in the country of Poulenc's La voix humaine. Recordings went to Bulgarian radio and television, Radio Bucharest, Radio Prague, Balkanton and Vienna Modern Masters; the Golden Antenna came in 1984, the Golden Lyre in 2001, the Rousse award in 2020.