Opera bass Deyan Vachkov marks a quarter century on stage this year, he said in an interview with Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) Burgas. Performances marking the anniversary have already taken place at the Varna Opera, the Sofia Opera and the Stara Zagora Opera.
Vachkov is a soloist with the Varna Opera and travels abroad when he has engagements there.
He started singing opera at 17, having sung songs with a guitar before that. His mother, an opera lover, steered him toward opera singing and introduced him to their neighbour, soloist Penyo Pirozov, with whom he prepared for and then passed the entrance exam for the conservatory.
He graduated from the Sofia Conservatory and then spent two years training at La Scala in Milan. He has sung hundreds of roles.
He has performed at La Scala, the Arena di Verona, the San Carlo in Naples, the Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Teatro Regio in Parma, in Madrid and Turin, at the Petruzzelli in Bari and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. Conductors he has worked with include Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Antonio Pappano, Gary Bertini and Carlo Franci. He has lived in Italy and Spain.
He prefers Italian and Spanish theatres, where the orchestras, choirs and singers are of a very high standard, he said. "Singing there is very hard, because the responsibility is huge too, but you feel incredibly fulfilled when you're on those stages," the bass told BNR.
Vachkov believes singers perform out of love for music and the joy of pleasing the audience.
In his free time he plays beach tennis, meets up with friends, listens to music and dances.