THIS PART IS FOR YOUR FAVORITES!
Bulgarian Bass Nicolai Ghiaurov in a collection of favorites? Give us your opinion!

Nicolai Ghiaurov, Bass (1929-2004)

Peter Tchaikovsky - Eugen Onegin
Prince Gremin´s aria (Lyubvi fse vozrastï pokornï) - The gift of love is rightly treasured
(Recorded 1974)

My personal opinion: "Some are sure, he didn´t bring to the recording studio the same tension we know from his stage-performances", wrote Alan Blythe many years ago, but in 2004 he praised bulgarian singer Nicolai Ghiaurov as "Gifted operatic bass, who commanded the international stage for 30 years!". Blythe wrote this in June 2004, three days after Ghiaurov has died of heart failure aged 74.

Could you imagine, Ghiaurov played Cavaradossi in "Tosca"? Well, it wasn´t Puccini´s opera, it was the drama of Sardou. Young Nicolai Ghiaurov was very versatile, played harmonica, soon began to learn piano, violin and clarinet. And in his teenyears, he acted too. National service then intervened and one day, while he was rehearsing an army choir, an officer noticed that Ghiaurov had an excellent voice. It was a fateful moment; the officer introduced Ghiaurov to Brambarov, the leading baritone at the Sofia Opera, who, in turn, urged him to enter the Sofia Conservatory, where Brambarov agreed to teach him. At age 20, he was helped financially to go to Moscow where he studied from 1950 to 1955. He was sent to Paris, where he won a singing contest, on the strength of which he became principal bass at the Sofia Opera. Back in Moscow in 1957, Ghiaurov had a triumph at the Bolshoi, as Mephistopheles, which became one of his best roles. A year later, he repeated the role at Bologna, and received international fame. In 1960 he was Varlaam in "Boris Godunov" at La Scala. Soon Vienna followed. His Padre Guardino in Verdi´s "Forza del Destino" brought him a huge success at Covent Garden. Alan Blyth: "The rich, penetrating sound of his very first notes alerted one to the arrival of a new eminence on the operatic scene." In 1965 he sang King Philipp in Solti´s recording of "Don Carlo" and Lord Harewood wrote about "the biggest voice of all singers who had sung the role in complete recordings", but he missed a special quality: The sublime sound of a monarch!
De facto his sound frequently was monotonous, although his voice was rich and melodious, but impersonal many times. Do not missunderstand me, I appreciate his voice (Probably after WW2 there was no bigger bass-voice), but Boris Christoff always gave a character study with his singing. That´s the reason why I choosed him for Part 1 and not Ghiaurov. Well, it´s my personal opinion, that of a private music-lover. John Steane however praised the "Beauty of his singing" and especially his Don Giovanni and Boris. I do more agree with Kesting, who said Ghiaurov´s singing was static.
The last words again from Alan Blythe: "He was the possessor of a dark, weighty, yet flexible, basso cantante. He never countenanced mauling the vocal line in the cause of promoting characterisation, preferring, above all, restraint, sincerity and musicality.
He was twice married, latterly to the soprano Mirella Freni.
19 nominations brought him to place 30 in the long row of your favorites!.

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