The young people of today need opera and we, the people of my generation, make it so that in the light of the requirements of the modern world to be felt the fascination of art, said the renowned opera diva Anna Tomowa-Sintow

Violeta Tsvetkova

One of the greatest Bulgarian opera singers with world fame – Anna Tomowa-Sintow, returned at the Sofia Opera to train vocally the soloists for the new production of “Don Giovanni”. One of her crown parts – Donna Anna, is namely in this work by Mozart, but in the long list of embodiments of the prima are Elvira from “Ernani”, Cio-Cio-San from “Madama Butterfly”, Leonora from “La forza del destino” and dozens of others. Recordings of arias in her performance sounded at the special evening “Star Moments with Anna Tomowa-Sintow”, organized by the musicologist Magdalena Manolova on 7 April at the Sofia Opera. Then was opened the exhibition “55 Years Life on the Stage” with more than 100 photos from the prima’s many-sided stage life. The photos are from her family archive and from the personal collection of Erich Wirl, a collaborator of the society “Friends of the Vienna State Opera”. Special accent in the exposition is the work of the Bulgarian singer with Herbert von Karajan, who left his will to her not to stop to transfer the gathered experience to the younger singers. In spite of her tight programme, Anna Tomowa-Sintow spared time for an interview for the Economist Magazine.

-  Mrs. Sintow, at the press conference on the occasion of your return at the Sofia Opera you said that for you most important is the feeling, with which you begin to work on each of your characters. However, what is the feeling, with which you stepped again in the building of the Sofia Opera after the long break?

-  I came with mixed feelings. Of course, with special excitement and joy – it is always so, when a contact with Bulgaria lies ahead of me. But with uncertainty too, because I didn’t know what would be the attitude towards me, as well as the condition of the company. But everything was very warm, spontaneous in a human way – I saw and felt what brightens the atmosphere in one theatre and makes the small things disappear, and the great tradition of the Sofia National Opera stay. In our days people lose energy to deal with trifling, negative things, and for me most important is the positive to prevail. This is why I say that I felt a kind of uncertainty, which evoked a strange feeling in me. But this feeling vanished at once. In me there is always a deep faith. Without a second thought I believe in the power of art and that it belongs to the people. And the Sofia Opera is namely a theatre, which is a sea of traditions – this what I would like to be preserved.

-  How do you find the company after its work on the heavy Wagner repertoire? Does this gathered experience help them or, on the contrary, does it rather need a change for the premiere of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” on 18 April?

-  In this case the help is relative. Wagner requires more power of the voice. I don’t want to say that this is dangerous, but rather that it develops the voice and the person in another direction. The requirements by the work with works by Mozart are quite different, but I am happy that thanks to their intelligence the soloists of the Sofia Opera switched very quickly. Yes, the first day there was a crisis, a period, in which we had to go out of the imposed by Wagner and come out towards Mozart, who, as people say, is a cure for the voice, but not only – you know that by the treatment of different diseases an additional therapy with Mozart’s music is applied. I am happy that there are no voices damaged by Wagner, on the contrary, all of them are enriched and artistically developed. Obviously through Wagner have opened new, unknown spheres, and the interpretation itself has helped all this to be really mastered. These are both singing and philosophical and psychological requirements. Now the soloists are happy that they are singing Mozart. And even if there was something small, which was not in order, Mozart clears it.

-  What is the new, modern Don Juan in the opera?

-  On this matter I am a little bit conservative and I insist art to remain art. It is not obligatory the people, who come as audience at the theatre, to see on the stage the same figures, which they meet on the street today. In this production of “Don Giovanni”, however, there is a development, but in a good direction.

-   And how do you think – in the reality today what is Don Juan like, in trousers or rather already in a skirt?

-  Ha-ha, there are both, it was always so and it will be so. Because it is just a matter of human relations, which remain such, as they were. The human, the typical for human’s nature remains. But by Don Juan there is rather an allusion to the plus and the minus – which one should win, while in Mozart’s concept, finally, a liquidation of the wrong is reached.

-  And is it possible to achieve great success without love?

-  No! It is number one! Is there life without love at all? It is at the basis of everything. While the success is a product. Of course, there must be a striving for it, but this is valid for life in general. Everyone strives what he or she is doing to bear fruit, i.e. to succeed.

-  Five years ago, in another interview I asked you about the young singers and you told me that by them is as if missing the idealism, which makes the art – is it still so?

-  In principle the idealism today is missing in the air all over the world. I continue thinking that art cannot do without idealism, without having its extreme forms in mind. The materialism is alien to me, and today the business in the art is already very strong. I need very little – just to stay true to the composers.

-  You probably mean the aspiration of stage directors and producers for modernization of the classic for attracting of audience – do technologies and money kill the art?

-  No, no way. Because today the people of art have many, many other possibilities. If I dare to lay a stress on the stage of development and education of the people of art from my generation, we were a quite another generation. We may have been a little bit hungry, but when we had an hour free, we grasped the accordion, we went and sit somewhere, we were playing and singing. This is maybe missing today. However, I am delighted with what I am experiencing with the young singers during my master classes all over the world. I am delighted that namely in this technical age they find inspiration in art, they are thirsty, they hold onto it and want to reach out to the truth. Exactly here we, who have drunk from the spring, are a little bit obliged to them – to help, so that they may have support. The young people of today need opera and we, the people of my generation, make it so that in the light of the requirements of the modern world to be felt the fascination of art.

-  This way you fulfil the will of Herbert von Karajan, don’t you? Entire 17 years you have worked with the great Maestro …

-  Karajan was a gift from heaven for all of us. For the whole world. Yes, 17 years I had the chance to work with him. The last ones – so active … We had a very strong artistic connection, but he wasn’t jealous. He knew what costs the concentration and the work with him – every three months I had a participation either with the Vienna or with the Berlin Philharmonic, or at the Salzburg Festival, etc., and parallel with that I was singing with Abbado, with Muti, with Levine, Maazel, Mehta, with all celebrated conductors of the time. Karajan, however, remained a luminary. And in our last conversations I had to promise him that the learned, what I am carrying in me, I shall transfer to the young people in master classes. He insisted on that. I promised and I am fulfilling the promised.

-  And what does it mean for Anna Tomowa-Sintow “55 of 75”?

-  (She laughs.) Oh, how to call it – to draw a conclusion of one superactive life. Very active, filled with so many experiences. This is something, which I am carrying with me with joy. I would say – with certain pride. And with gratitude that I had this gift namely through the art to bring joy, positive thought and “food” to the people. It fills in my soul also now, when I am already 75, and I do my best to pass on the torch to the young people. They continue forward, at a new level, with what we have carried too. This is why I am happy.