Tomowa-Sintow, Anna

Tomowa-Sintow, Anna, admired Bulgarian soprano; b. Stara Zagora, Sept. 22, 1941. She studied at the Bulgarian State Cons. in Sofia with Zlatew-Tscherkin and Zpiridonowa. In 1965 she made her operatic debut as Tatiana in Stara Zagora. She made her first appearance at the Leipzig Opera as Abigaille in 1967, and subsequently sang Arabella, Cio-Cio-San, Desdemona, and Violetta there. After winning the Sofia (1970) and Rio de Janeiro (1971) competitions, she made her debut at the Berlin State Opera as Mozart’s Countess in 1972. Her career was assured when Karajan chose her to create the role of Sibyl in the premiere of Orff’s De temporum fine comoedia at the Salzburg Festival in 1973. She continued to sing there with much success in subsequent years, and also appeared at Karajan’s Salzburg Easter Festivals. In 1974 she sang Donna Anna at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and made her U.S. debut that same year at the San Francisco Opera in the same role. In 1975 she appeared for the first time at London’s Covent Garden as Fiordiligi. She made her debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1977 as Mozart’s Countess. Her subsequent successes there led to her being made an Austrian Kammersängerin in 1988. On April 3, 1978, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Donna Anna. She appeared as Wagner’s Elisabeth at the Paris Opéra in 1984. In 1990 she sang Yaroslavna in Prince Igor at Covent Garden. In 1992 she appeared as Tosca in Helsinki. She was engaged as Ariadne in Lisbon in 1996. She also sang extensively as a concert artist. Among her other notable roles were Verdi’s Amelia and Aida, Wagner’s Elsa, and Strauss’s Marschallin.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire