Ghena Dimitrova

In memoriam

Ghena Dimitrova (Гeна Димитpова) was a Bulgarian operatic soprano. Her voice was known for its power and extension used in operatic roles such as Turandot in a career spanning four decades. ∼ Ghena Dimitrova, who has died aged 64, had one of the most formidably dramatic voices among sopranos of the past 25 years. As such, she was ideally cast in roles that other prima donnas think twice about undertaking, such as Turandot, Abigaille (in Verdi's Nabucco) and the title part of Ponchielli's Gioconda. She was not the subtlest of performers, but her basic style of acting had its own validity, and her stage presence was almost as arresting as her voice. When she first appeared, as Turandot, at the Metropolitan in New York in 1987, one eminent critic simply described her as "a wonder", and her Turandot at Covent Garden in 1983 provoked the same sort of reaction. I recall her a little earlier the same year, at her British debut, singing Gioconda in a concert performance of Ponchielli's work at the Barbican, opposite Domingo's Enzo, and being mesmerised by her trenchant yet not unsympathetic characterisation of that tragic heroine. It was a portrayal in the old, grand scale of operatic performance that was already rather out of fashion. She sang Lady Macbeth with Covent Garden on tour in Greece in 1986. Dimitrova studied singing at Bulgaria's Sofia Music Academy, and made her professional debut in 1965 at Sofia's National Opera as Abigaille. Success in a singing competition in the capital in 1970 brought her to international attention, and she sang her first Turandot at Treviso in 1975. That year she first sang at the Colón in Buenos Aires, where she appeared for the next five seasons. The Vienna State Opera welcomed her in 1978. Her first American appearance was at Dallas in 1981 as Elvira in Verdi's Ernani, another role that suited her forthright style. A notable appearance was as Aida on site at Luxor in 1987. Other roles for which she was noted include Leonora (Il Trovatore), Desdemona, Manon Lescaut, Tosca and Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana). Dimitrova's short but significant career is quite well documented on CD and video. In a 1989 La Scala set of Aida, she sings Amneris rather than the title role, and gives a vital portrait of the jealous princess. Her impressive Turandot was taken on film at Verona in 1983, when she was at the peak of her career, with Nicola Martinucci as her equally stentorian Calaf. They are also partners in a CD version recorded at Genoa in 1989. Her Abigaille was caught at Verona in 1981, a suitable antagonist to Bruson's tortured Nabucco, and a striking assumption in its own right. Her Giselda in Verdi's Lombardi, filmed at La Scala in 1984, is a more rudimentary reading of a part that calls for more subtlety. In Bulgaria Dimitrova was something of a national hero. On hearing of her death the country's culture minister declared that: "Bulgaria has lost a great voice and a great Bulgarian, who had promoted her country and its culture around the world." She was undoubtedly an artist who gave her all to any role she attempted, and was a larger-than-life performer in an operatic world now rather short of such beings. Obituary from The Guardian

Locația mormântului