Here is what Daniela Karaivanova has to say about the premiere of the opera "THE TRAVEL":
How does it feel to be entrusted with the role of Violetta Valery for the 75th anniversary of Rousse Opera?
I am grateful for this appreciation, I feel happy and inspired. I am extremely excited to step into the shoes of the Lady with the Camellias again, but also with great responsibility as I am always one hundred percent committed to the heroines I perform.
This approach was cultivated in me by my parents, thanks to whom I have some of the most valuable and important lessons for an artist. Together with them was my first contact on stage, and when I started working at the Rousse Opera - I felt the comfort and peace that can be in a family.
I was very warmly received by my colleagues, always ready to help and support. This is what I try to pass on to my young colleagues.
Brilyanta Kevorkian performed the role of Violetta Valery in the first "La Traviata" on November 27, 1949, then legends like Penka Marinova, and in more recent times Tsvetelina Maldzhanska, Maria Tsvetkova... Did you learn from these singers and do you believe that it is important to respect and appreciate them, to remember those before us who laid the foundation?
I have listened to recordings and many stories from colleagues about Brilliant Kevorkian and Penka Marinova. I have respect and regard for my colleagues because each has left her mark and her personal contribution with her creative approach to the construction and recreation of the image. I have learned and will continue to do so from both my older and younger colleagues.
Every singer should throughout his creative path improve and extract from himself new nuances, different colors of his soulfulness, translate them into art and have the aspiration to reach the apogee of his talent.
It is important to remember those who paved the way we walk today, it is our mission to continue the traditions and one day those after us will admire the flowers we have sown and contribute to the development of the flower garden with their personal perspective on art.
You're not doing this role for the first time, what will you build on and change now?
From the very beginning of my reading of Violetta, I have tried to refract her through my prism, with analysis and insight into the literature that accompanies this character and is the basis for the libretto of the opera.
Rereading Dumas's novel, The Lady with the Camellias, I am still rediscovering new and novel details that can only be light in my search for the feelings, emotions, and states of the lyrical heroine I am recreating.
This helps me to feel the music dramaturgically better, to find and show more of the nuances of my voice and, in the short time from the beginning to the end of the opera, to bring out all the love I have for the character of Violetta Valéry.
You've been rehearsing with the director Nina Naydenova for a long time. Have you worked with her before and what are your impressions of her approach and concept?
When I started working at the Rousse Opera, Nina Naydenova was invited to stage Turandot. I had the opportunity to observe her rehearsals and the way she worked. Even then she impressed me with her incredible flair. In a very short time I was able to work with her in Love Elixir.
I like her reading of La Traviata, this clash between the characters, the different states, manages to keep you in the game throughout. Work, build, tireless Nina Naydenova!
I know from other conversations with you that dramatic roles are closer to you than comic roles. Do you believe that even today, in the name of love, it is worth neglecting yourself and even sacrificing yourself?
Yes! In dramatic roles I manage to bring to the surface an emotionality that is hidden very deep inside me, to recreate it with my invention.
The story itself and the drama of the plot are very affecting to me... the composer's remarks that particular moments should be sung through tears, the fact that the librettist used phrases from the novel without correcting them. I like his vision of Violetta dying in her lover's arms, it's some consolation that perhaps in her last breath she was happy, unlike in the book where she dies in agony and all alone.
The idea of unconditional love is not a fiction in my view of love either. How it gives us strength to live sometimes, even if it is the last we have left and can give.
