Sofia, 18 April /by Olia Al-Ahmed, Bulgarian Telegraph Agency/
The music in Verdi’s Requiem passes through the soul, it shakes, purifies, said in an interview for the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency the mezzo-soprano Nadia Krasteva, who is among the performers of the Requiem Mass on 25 April at the Sofia Opera and Ballet.
“I am happy with the possibility to sing this divine music on my home stage in the eve of one of the brightest Christian holidays. Every time when I was performing the mezzo-soprano part in Verdi’s Requiem (in the St. Peter Cathedral in Riga, at the Verdi Festival, at the Opera theatre in Parma with Riccardo Muti, at the Eisteddfod Festival in Cardiff, at Musikverein Graz, etc.) for me it was a unique experience and a real blessing”, added Nadia Krasteva.
Let the beauty of music reach the depths of the soul of everyone, let it bring joy, blessing, goodness, stated the opera prima.
Nadia Krasteva was born in Sofia. Immediately after her graduation from the Pancho Vladigerov Academy of Music, she specialized at the Boris Christoff Academy in Rome with Anita Cerquetti. She debuted on a big stage still as a student in the role of Sally Bowles (“Cabaret”) at the Stefan Makedonski Music Theatre in Sofia, then followed “Carmen” in Burgas, and in Season 2001/02 she was soloist of the Stara Zagora Opera.
Having received an invitation in 2002 to join the company of the Wiener Staatsoper, she quickly turned into favourite of the requiring Vienna audience. She debuted with the role of Fenena in “Nabucco” and performed with enormous success almost all big mezzo-soprano parts like Eboli (in the Italian and the French version of “Don Carlo”), Carmen, Leonora (“La favorite”), Adalgisa (“Norma”), Maria Gesualdo, Marina (“Boris Godunov”), Preziosilla (“La forza del destino”), Ulrica (“Un ballo in maschera”), Maddalena (“Rigoletto”), Olga (“Eugene Onegin”), Suzuki (“Madama Butterfly”), etc. The pretentious Vienna critique welcomes with delight her appearances on the stage, fascinated by the incredibly strong influence of her voice, by the convincing presentation of each role and the musical precision of the performances, as well as by Nadia Krasteva’s enviable acting and strong stage presence.
She performs often also the roles of Dalila (one of her most successful embodiments), Amneris (“Aida”), Venus (“Tannhäuser”), Princess de Bouillon (“Adriana Lecouvreur”), Verdi’s and Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and takes part in many opera and chamber concerts too.
In her repertoire Nadia Krasteva has performed over 30 roles on the most of the most important stages and festivals in the world like Wiener Staatsoper, Arena di Verona, La scala di Milano, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco, Bolshoi Theatre, Opéra Bastille in Paris, Wiener Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Verdi Festival in Parma, Nomori Opera Tokyo, Deutsche Oper and Unter den Linden in Berlin, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Bayerische Staatsoper, San Diego, Dallas, Amsterdam, Valencia, Zurich, Geneva, St. Gallen, Torino, Covent Garden, Dresden, Peking, El Escorial, Sofia, etc.
On the occasion of Nadia Krasteva’s debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago with her parade role Carmen John Rhein wrote in Chicago Tribune: “The rich, dark colours and the deep sensitivity of her voice connected themselves superbly with the natural acting and the fiery temperament of this role, which is a touchstone for each mezzo-soprano.”
Besides in Chicago, the friends of the opera enjoyed Carmen, recreated by Nadia Krasteva, on many stages of leading world opera theatres like Wiener Staatsoper, Arena di Verona, Bolshoi Theatre, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Amsterdam, Hamburg, St. Margarethen Festival, Savonlinna Festival, in Riga, Sofia, etc.
The whole interview follows:
Question: Days before the coming of the greatest Christian Eastern holidays, the Sofia Opera and Ballet invites on 25 April 2019 its admirers to get in touch with Giuseppe Verdi’s music in one of his most often performed up to this day works “Requiem”. How do you, Mrs. Krasteva, feel this work of art? What is "Requiem" for you?
Answer: I am happy with the possibility to sing this divine music on my home stage in the eve of one of the brightest Christian holidays. Every time when I was performing the mezzo-soprano part in Verdi’s Requiem (in the St. Peter Cathedral in Riga, at the Verdi Festival, at the Opera theatre in Parma with Riccardo Muti, at the Eisteddfod Festival in Cardiff, at Musikverein Graz, etc.) for me it was a unique experience and a real blessing.
Question: The great English writer Bernard Show said about Verdi’s great work of art: “This is music which penetrates into the heart and shakes the soul. It may well happen the Requiem to outlive his operas”. What is your wording for this work?
Answer: I do agree. Not by chance this Requiem is often called “Verdi’s best opera”. It is very close in sounding to the composer’s operas, and the cast of the orchestra is almost identical with that by “Don Carlo”.
Question: The soloists, besides you, are Vittoria Yeo, Francesco Anile, Riccardo Zanellato, together with the chorus and the orchestra of the Sofia Opera, conducted by Pavel Klinichev. What would you say in short about your colleagues, with who you will present to the audience this divine work of art? How do you work with them?
Answer: I still haven’t the possibility to work together with these colleagues, I will be glad to meet them.
Question: Would you tell something about the creation history of “Requiem”?
Answer: Verdi’s Requiem is one of the most performed works from the 19th century. It was written to the memory of the well-known Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni and was performed for the first time one year after his death, on 22 May 1874, in the San Marco Church in Milan. Giuseppe Verdi himself conducted the premiere, and after the incredible success followed a tour in many of the European capitals.
Question: Why “Requiem” never bores and can be listened to hundreds of times?
Answer: “Requiem” is an exceptionally fascinating work which conquers with its dramatism and deep emotionality, rich orchestration and impressive contrasts in the musical expression. In it in an incredible way alternate passages, which are only whispered and come as a voice from some other dimension, with furious raisings of the music, the way the well-known “Dies ire” (“Day of Wrath”) is, or the steeped in pain and repentance legatissimos like “Lacrimosa”. This music passes through the soul, it shakes and purifies.
Question: Mrs. Krasteva, about you legends are told that you are a real Carmen in life too. You even look like her prototype. After your brilliant presentation as Carmen at the Sofia Opera, how are you switching your mood now for “Requiem”?
Answer: Such “legends” are cheering me up – I don’t know what exactly would be the resemblance with this well-known opera personage, but one thing connects us indeed: the striving for freedom of the spirit, which sometimes leads after it to reluctance to fit into the conventional norms and frames, which imperceptibly limits, robs, depresses the personality.
Question: How do you enter into a role as a rule? How do you switch from character to character?
Answer: As performer, who since the age of 9 has dealt with singing and since ca. 18 years appears professionally on stage, I have accepted the switching from one role to another as something usual in vocal, as well as in physical aspect. This is something, which by us, the singers, happens imperceptibly with the time and the practice.
Question: You achieved incredible success in Japan. It is even known to me that two Japanese – a man and a woman, are “in pursuit” of you wherever you are all over the world. Is it true?
Answer: Well, not everywhere, but they have surprised me nicely at the entrance of the opera houses in Vienna, Moscow, Dresden, New York, for example.
Question: Tell some more interesting story with your admirers in the world?
Answer: There are admirers, with who connects us friendship, for example one family in Moscow, after I sang at Bolshoi Theatre a premiere of “Carmen”, we also became friends with admirers from Dallas, Berlin, Munich and Chicago.
Question: With what feeling do you return on your home stage?
Answer: With a lot of trepidation and love.
Question: However, which is your favourite stage?
Answer: Many are the good stages, on which I had the pleasure to appear as singer. Vienna, Munich, Moscow, Buenos Aires, San Diego, New York, for example. Theatres with wonderful atmosphere and acoustics.
Question: Have you ever refused an aria?
Answer: I don’t remember to have refused a part or an aria, which was proposed to me because of a fear, if it is suitable for my voice or not. During my 10-year stay at the Wiener Staatsoper I even was forced to sing parts of any kind, so that I with pleasure accepted the challenge.
Question: Which aria you haven’t sung yet? In which role would you like to see yourself?
Answer: There are quite a lot of arias and roles, which I still haven’t sung, but those, which I have sung, are a lot. I am thankful for each one of them! The rest is done by the finger of God.
Question: Your Eastern wishes before the premiere?
Answer: I wish the beauty of music to reach the depths of the soul of everyone in the hall, to bring peace, blessing, goodness!
Nadia Krasteva in the role of Dalila from the opera “Samson et Dalila” by Saint-Saëns
/by Olia Al-Ahmed, Bulgarian Telegraph Agency/