Christina Vasileva

Soloist of the Prague State Opera

Christina Vasileva was born in Sofia (Bulgaria) in a Czech-Bulgarian family. In 1990, she graduated at the Conservatory of Sofia Lyubomir Pipkov and then continued her studies in belcanto singing with Michael Tomaschov. Her international career started 1995 in Carlsbad (Czech Republic) where she became a laureate of the Antonín Dvořák´s International Singing Competition. In the same year she accepted an engagement in the F. X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec (Czech Republic). In 2006, Christina Vasileva became a soloist of the Prague State Opera.

Her repertoire includes the roles of Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly), Manon Lescaut, Norma, Desdemona (Otello), Rusalka, Tatjana (Eugen Onegin), Fiordiligi (Così Fan Tutte), she also appears on opera stages as Amelia (Simon Boccanegra), Elena (I Vespri Siciliani), Nedda (I Pagliacci), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Leonora (Il Trovatore), Micaela (Carmen).

As a guest, Christina Vasileva appeared in opera houses in Europe and overseas. She performed Rusalka in Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (1996), Cio-Cio-San at the Eutiner Festspiele, Remscheid and Solingen with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Hillary Griffith (1999 and 2000), Rusalka at the Opera of the Prague National Theatre with Miro Dvorský (2002), Norma in the Rhodes Theatre (Greece, 2002), Desdemona in the Winterthur Theatre (2004) etc. She also enjoyed huge successes as Violetta during La traviata Tour 2003 with the Prague State Opera in Japan, also in the Oji Hall in Tokio. Between 1998 and 2003, she joined Peter Dvorský and the Prague Philharmonia for a series of opera recitals and concerts.

Critics highly appreciated her appearances in the role of Liù (Turandot) in Salzburg under the conductor Enrico Dovico and her interpretation of Saint-Saëns´s Hélène under the baton of Guillaume Tourniaire in the Prague State Opera, both in 2008. Christina Vasileva is the Czech prestigious Thalia 2008 prize nominee for the role of Mimi from Puccini´s La Bohème where she „magnificently applied her well balanced, colourful and sensitive soprano as well as the art of touching cantilena and of the precisely focused dramatic build-up“.

She has co-operated with the conductors such as Jiří Bělohlávek, Heiko Mathias Förster, Hillary Griffith, Ondrej Lenárd, Marco Zambelli, Enrico Dovico, Leoš Svárovský, Rastislav Štúr and Guillaume Tourniaire, stage directors Jozef Bednárik, Ondřej Havelka, Petr Kracik, Václav Věžník and others. Future projects in 2010 include debut in the role of Tosca in The Prague State Opera and her debut in Robert Wilson´s production of Janacek´s Katya Kabanova under the conductor Tomáš Netopil in The National Theatre in Prague.