Raina Kabaivanska: A Diva with Principles

People | January 26, 2007, Friday // 00:00
Bulgaria: Raina Kabaivanska: A Diva with Principles Photo by personal archive

She is called the Bulgarian soprano, the primadona. During her frequent visits to her homeland, she gathers some of the most talented young singers in her master classes. Internationally acclaimed Raina Kabaivanska talks with Milena Hristova about the cost of fame and life outside the stage.


Critics say the last 50 years have been marked by Callas and Kabaivanska and it's small wonder they set the two great singers side by side. The Bulgarian made her debut in 1959 in Italy with Puccini's opera "Il Tabarro". Decades later, at the age of 69, her last Tosca set a record, prompting talks of a living legend, a myth.

The role of Tosca, staged at more than 400 performances in the biggest and smallest theatres around the world, is the role that Kabaivanska is grateful the most for her popularity.

"I owe my popularity largely to this role as it is the most frequently staged operas of Puccini. I performed it together with some of the greatest opera singers - Corelli, Domingo, Pavarotti, Carreras. I shot a feature film, two video films and a DVD," she recalls.

How did she shape it? She invested it with her own creative style - a wide range of dynamic contrasts, nuances, pride and independence.

Independence and self-confidence is a key word both in her private and professional life.

"My self-confidence endowed me with wisdom and tolerance. Lack of self-confidence in my youth made me sometimes aggressive," she admits.

"My farewell with the role of Butterfly six years ago on the Arena di Verona will probably remain the most memorable performance on stage for me personally. An audience of 200,000 gave me a standing ovation for no less than 15 minutes."

The success comes after years of maturing as an artist, continuously aspiring to intellectual perfection, exploring wide musical horizons - from XVII up to XX century (Strauss, Janacek, Shostakovich).

Now at the end of her career on stage, she has no sorrows.

"I take the parting with a role to be a natural thing. This is the way I take my age and the advance in years, this is just a natural process to me. But I continue to live with my music through my students."

It is nowhere else but in Bulgaria that Kabaivanska finds some of her best students ever since her first master classes started in 2001.

"It is my blood, inheritance, love for my homeland and the sense of duty that bind me to Bulgaria," she says.

"The communist regime left its scars most of all in the psychology of the people. I would like to tell my country-fellows to follow nobody blindly and be more active. To whine and wait for the state to do the job, to give advice in every field is rather typical of us, Bulgarians."

Kabaivanska admits that the lack of great opera talents is a phenomenon of world significance, which is hard to explain. Yet in Bulgaria she came across many talented and ambitious singers in Sofia.

"The foundation was founded in 1990. After the death of Blaga Dimitrova, who gave me the idea for the foundation, I decided to opt for another option and be of help - by establishing a scholarship fund for talented young people, an activity that I can control myself."

Would she ever compromise with her principles?

"Never! I can assure you this doesn't make my life a lot easier!"

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