Voice reaching to the heavens

by Petar PLAMENOV

27 May (Friday) 2011
16th Salon des arts Sofia
National Palace of Culture
Hall 1, 19:00

 Nabucco
• Conductor: Maurizio Arena
• Cast: Ghena Dimitrova, Renato Bruzon, Dimitar Petkov
• Save, broadcast by RAI on November 13, 1981

Cinema screening of opera performance from the Arena di Verona featuring the great Bulgarian singer Ghena Dimitrova.

"I live to hear a voice that only gods deserve!", exclaimed in surprise for Ghena Dimitrova`s voice unforgettable conductor Herbert von Karajan. She (6 May 1941–11 June 2005) was a famous Bulgarian operatic soprano and she is one of the biggest stars of the operatic stage in the twentieth century. Her voice was known for its power and extension used in operatic roles such as Abigaille, Toska and Turandot in a career spanning four decades.



Ghena Dimitrova started singing in the school choir and her powerful voice led to her being offered a place at the Sofia Conservatory studying under Cristo Brambarov between 1959 and 1964. While she was initially classified as a mezzo-soprano, she was recognised as a soprano in her second year. After finishing her studies at the Sofia Conservatory, she started teaching singing. Her breakthrough came in 1967 as Abigaille in a Bulgarian National Opera production of Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco after a couple of other sopranos dropped out. Dimitrova learned the demanding role in a week. In the early recordings Dimitrova's voice had not yet reached its signature size, and in many of the early Nabucco productions, the final optional high C is omitted in the cabaletta, Salgo già, which she would include later in her career.

Dimitrova made her Italian debut as Turandot in Treviso in 1975, and essayed the same role for her 1983 La Scala debut opposite tenor Plácido Domingo in Franco Zeffirelli's lavish production. Her Turandot is also preserved in a video of the Arena di Verona production from 1983, with Nicola Martinucci and Cecilia Gasdia. In 1988, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York performing the same role.
 
Verdi sympathized with the Italian Risorgimento, the resurgence of Italy's leading cultural role and political unification under king Vittorio Emanuele II. Nabucco has often been considered Verdi's opera with more political meanings with the captive hebrews symbolically representing the divided and occupied pre-unification Italians.
If the fine and inspiring melody ot jews slaves chorus "Va pensiero" had not derived from opera and from a situation involving imprisonment, it might well have become Italy national anthem. 



 

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