Raina kabaivanska biography

"I was just a child in Burgas, Bulgaria, where I was born, when a gypsy woman stopped me to read my palm," says Raina Kabaivanska, sitting on a couch in her home in Modena on a foggy autumn morning. "My parents said ‘Come away, come away.’ But, of course, I stopped. She took my hand and, after studying it, said, I see you as a tsarina, with a magnificent crown on your head."

In fact, Raina has worn many crowns during her life on stage, and her name, which means "river nymph" in Bulgarian, sounds a lot like "reina" or "queen" in her adopted language, Italian. Raina Kabaivanska turns 90 on December 15, and in her beautiful, bright home full of art, she indulges in her memories despite the foggy weather. And she does so with the personality and intelligence she has always displayed throughout her year career, on and off the stage.

There is something very Balkan about the way she talks about herself. She is aware of the importance of her career, but her smile is welcoming and wry, even though she knows she always wears a crown. That fatalism is deeply Balkan, a constant reminder that her life has turned out the way it has by sheer chance, thanks to happy little steps that happened without too much effort on her part. And then there is her sense of humour, her lightning-fast ability to pick up on funny details. Checking herself in the reflection of a flower vase I had brought her, she began humming "Poor Flowers" by Adriana Lecouvreur. A poor tulip in the composition is sadly wilted: "buds of the meadows dying today"

Otherwise, Raina Kabaivanska is the most Italian of singers. She trained in our country after she arrived in on a Bulgarian scholarship. She knew music well and she had a diploma in singing and piano from the Sofia Conservatory, but she knew nothing about performing, theatre or the operatic environment. Young and inexperienced, she parachuted into

Raina Kabaivanska was born in Burgass, Bulgaria, on the Black Sea. Her father was a veterinarian and a writer; also a talented inventor, as he designed and realized Balkantourist, the Bulgarian Tourist Association. Her mother was a professor of physics. Raina always lived in Sofia and studied there. As a child she played the piano and sang accompanying herself on a small accordeon. As a student at the Sofia Conservatory she was a soloist in the Artistic Collective of the Workers’ Army and played and sang popular opera arias for soprano and mezzo.

For a few months she was a member of the chorus at the Sofia Opera House, as a soprano. In the final end-of-term production of the Conservatoory. In the end-of-term spectacle of her last Conservatory year she took part in Tatyana’s Leter Scene from Tchaykovsky’s Eugene Onyegin amd in the final scene of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera.

In she obtained a 6-month scholarship from her government. She used it to finish her musical education in Italy. There she met Zita Fumagalli Riva, who had been a reputed verismo interpreter in the ‘10s and ‘20es, and studied with her. In Milan Raina had to suffer hardships to complete her studies. She made her stage debut at Vercelli as Giorgetta in Puccini’s Il tabarro in Soon after she ap-peared at minor opera houses in Northern Italy, such as Sanremo, Mantua, Trento and Bozen, singing Bohéme and Pagliacci. She then won a competition to enter the Young Singers’ School at la Scala, Milan, where she worked with conductors such as Antonio Tonini and Gianandrea Gavazzeni and stage producer Mario Frigerio. In she was considered mature enough to debut in Malipiero’s Torneo Notturno at the Piccola Scala, with Antonino Votto’s enthusiastic endorsement. In May she sang at the Scala “proper” as Agnese in Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, opposite Joan Sutherland.

Thanks to her musicianship and st

A regular reader asked why I had never written about Raina Kabaivanska. I had no reason apart from inadvertence and said I would put something together about her. This is it.

Ms Kabaivanska (born ) is a Bulgarian soprano now retired. She currently devotes her time to teaching. She was a lirico-spinto (with more emphasis on the lirico) who centered her career around Verdi and Puccini. Her repertoire is at the end of this article.

She was a very attractive figure and a fine actress who had an outstanding vocal technique. Its most outstanding feature was her ability to sing long piano lines with full vocal support &#; ie, she was a mistress of filatura. While she was very good in Verdi, I think she was at her best in Puccini.

Kabaivanska sang at every important opera house in Europe and the Americas. She made her Met debut in as Nedda in Pagliacci. Her last performance at the New York house was in as Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. She continued to appear onstage untill she was about After she retired she became a professor at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, in Siena, Italy. She also holds master classes throughout Europe.

I&#;ll start with Verdi &#; two arias and a duet from Il Trovatore. Tace la notte placida occurs in the first act. This excerpt includes the cabaletta. D&#;amor sull&#;ali rosee is from the opera&#;s fourth act. It is the supreme test of a Verdi soprano. Udiste… Mira, di acerbe lagrime is the duet from the same act. It&#;s the one where the soprano prefers death by poison to a liaison with a baritone. The rejected baritone in this excerpt is Piero Cappuccilli. These clips show the strengths and weaknesses of this fine soprano. Her vocal line is superb as is her piano singing. She fudges the trills and lacks the voluptuous round sound needed to fully realize this Leonora as well as the identically named character in La Forza Del Destino. Pace, pace mio Dio has the same vocal demands as &#;D&#;amor&#;&#;. Ka

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