Elena Nikolay (1905 - 1993)

Elena Nikolay is a Bulgarian opera singer, mezzo-soprano. Born as Stoyanka Savova Nikolova on 24 January 1905 in the village of Tserovo, Pazardjik district. After graduating from the American College of Samokov, she studied singing with the great pedagogue and singer Ivan Vulpe, who prepared her for applying at the Conservatory. She is not accepted her because of ... non-musicality. Elena Nikolay goes to America to her brother emigrant. There she worked, studied philosophy and Italian in the town of Oberlin, Ohio. In 1929 she joined the Milan Conservatoire "Giuseppe Verdi", where she studied singing at Vincenzo Pintorino. In 1934, she began to use the pseudonym Elena Nikolay and later on debuted in the role of Azucena in Giuseppe Verdi's Trubedard, in the Salo Opera Theater. For only a few seasons she became one of the most sought-after mezzo-soprano singers, for two decades since 1938 she was the first mezzo-soprano of the Milan La Scala opera. In 1943, after the bombing of Milan, she returned to Sofia, but after the war she worked again in La Scala. Her first guest appearance on the Sofia scene was in 1942 with the roles of Azucena and Amnery, and in 1943 she performed a charity concert and a live radio concert (as it was then). After the war, she was invited by the authorities in 1956 and 1961. In 1963, she voluntarily left La Scala and moved to Rome, but continued her career in film. Between 1963 and 1968, she starred in seven films, with the first film in which she starred, Il Boom, starring Alberto Sordi and director Vittorio De Sica. Elena Nikolay is honored as one of the most significant opera singers of the twentieth century. She died on 23 October 1993 at the Verdi home in Milan. (Source: www.operasofia.bg)