A writer of her time – Victor Raymond wrote: “Lyuba Velich? This is the most explosive singer of our time, more than Maria Callas and Maria Yerica… She is incomparable to anyone.”
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And indeed. So much so that when Metropolitan Opera director Johnson heard Callas in San Francisco and sent a telegram to opera director Rudolph Bing that he wanted to hire her, he got back the reply: “Only if she’s better than Luba Velich!” Johnson sent him back the following telegraphic text: “Lyuba Velich is better than Callas”.
In 1972, the following appeared in the Short Oxford Dictionary: “Lyuba Velich is a singer with an exceptional temperament and an individualist who will not be easily forgotten.”
Luba Velich / Source: Archive of the Sofia Opera
And she is not forgotten. To this day, her voice is heard all over the world from the old recordings that preserved the voice of the Bulgarian Lyuba Angelova Velichkova, with the artistic pseudonym Lyuba Velich. The opera singer and actress worked for a long time in Austria and in the United States.
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“Salome” – the forbidden fruit of temptation
For the musical world, she remains the “Salome of the Salomes” – the best Salome on the opera stage. Colossus of the Vienna Staatsoper and Metropolitan Opera – New York. She is the Bulgarian who literally explodes with applause Covent Garden – London. And the best thing is that despite her world fame, Lyuba Velich never forgets her roots and emphasizes everywhere that she is Bulgarian. Even when she received Austrian citizenship, she continued to present herself as Bulgarian.
On the 80th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss (1864-1949), the opera directorate of the Vienna Staatsoper invited the singer to participate in the main role in the famous composer’s opera “Salome”. Strauss himself attended the rehearsals and, excited by her performance, said publicly: “I did not know that my music was so beautiful! You have revealed it to me through your voice. If Orpheus was a genius singer magician, you are his daughter.”
In the early 1930s / Source: Archive of the Sofia Opera
And she, the Bulgarian Lyuba Velichkova, was born on July 10, 1913, in the village of Slavyanovo, Popovsko, in an ordinary family that earns its living by farming.
It has been 110 years since the birth of the world star of the opera – the Bulgarian Lyuba Velich.
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She graduated from high school in Shumen and, like any village girl, knows how to harvest, dig, milk cows, but she wants to do something more with her life, to outgrow the environment in which she was born, and leaves for Sofia. In the capital, she works as a kindergarten teacher. He sings to the children, entertains them. In 1933, he enrolled in the choir of the Sofia Opera and began taking singing lessons with the vocal teacher Georgi Zlatev-Cherkin, an Austrian graduate.
He was the first to notice her talent and included her in a group of young Bulgarians to apply for full-time students at the Vienna Conservatory. Professor Learhammer hears Luba and is enthralled by her soprano. He becomes her modest patron – he gives her money for food so that she “has the strength to sing”. However, Lyuba often falls asleep hungry and sometimes feels completely exhausted from malnutrition.
In May 1934 Source: DA “Archives”
To save on food, she walked eight kilometers from her apartment to the conservatory. She was often ashamed of her clunky shoes and shabby clothes.
The 5-year study at the conservatory ends within two years.
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In 1937, she was admitted to the Graz opera house. Already with her first performances, she became famous and began to invite her to sing in Munich and Berlin. In that period, she married a famous actor – Fred Schroer, famous as the best Hamlet in the Burgtheater. Unfortunately, before long it turns out that her husband is having an affair with… a man. Luba returns one evening earlier than planned and finds the lovers in the bedroom. The marriage ends. Divorce is resolved quickly, without public scandals. And the world outside became more and more chaotic – the Second World War began.
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At that time, he already had his dream job – first soprano of the Vienna Staatsoper, but the world did not like opera. However, she sought solace in art and triumphed with each of her subsequent roles – from Aida to Salome and Tosca. Posters with her face shine on the streets of Vienna. She is at the height of her fame, but in her soul there is anxiety. To fight the stress, he disciplined his spirit and began to behave more daringly on stage. Dyes her hair red for her role in Aida. The Covent Garden audience is demanding and does not unequivocally accept her new look – finding her unsuitable for the role. Velich, however, has his own vision and continues to amaze everyone with his artistic emancipation. She did such a strong role in Puccini’s La Bohème as Musetta that critics quickly forgot about the red hair and wrote: “Puccini’s opera should be called ‘Musetta’! Luba is allowed anything.”
Luba Velich / Source: Archive of the Sofia Opera
By the end of the 40s, Luba Velich had a fast and dizzying career. Her talent has made her a regular member of three of the world’s greatest operas – the Vienna Staatsoper, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera.
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For five years, she was the sensation of the States with her roles in the performances “The Bat”, “Tosca”, “Aida”, “Bohemia” and others. In Salome, she sings and dances with seven veils, which literally drives the male audience crazy. Her transparent clothes accentuate her beautiful body. She was wearing a flesh-colored leotard underneath, but it still looked like she was naked. One day the director of the opera dared to ask her “not to seduce Herod so boldly” on stage. However, Nashenko answered him without thinking: “This is my choreography, my dance, and after the audience has accepted me as such, I will do everything for it”. And the audience really went crazy for her dance, her fans adored her.
At the same time, the world career of Maria Callas was also developing. And she dreams of the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, but our Love, as it has already become clear, takes her place. And then there is an unprecedented lawsuit between the two – “Who is greater?” The basis of the evidence with which Callas brings Velich to court are those telegrams exchanged between the opera’s superintendent Johnson and director Bing. The court in New York decides in favor of the Bulgarian – she is better than Kalas.
Kalas leaves for Europe because he understands that the Metropolitan is “Velich’s”!
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To live the love of Callas and Onassis
In the mid-1950s, Luba Velić returned to Vienna to continue her work at the Staatsoper. Marries a… traffic policeman. The audience was literally amazed by her choice, but the marriage lasted with mutual compromises for about ten years and ended like her first marriage – with a fiasco. This time she found her husband with the domestic servant, a Serbian woman. Luba realizes that her fate as a traveling artist will always be an obstacle to harmonious domestic happiness. Her second divorce is very scandalous, because she is already a big, world star, everyone is interested in her life.
Source: Archive of the Sofia Opera
From the nervous tension of traveling, roles and her unsuccessful personal life, Velich began to put on weight. One evening she decided to go on a serious diet. The provocation came from an offer to star in a film by director Franz Wirth, as the Bulgarian Katerina Petkova in Bernard Shaw’s “Heroes”.
After this role, our Lyuba also became famous as a film actress and from that moment on she starred in 75 more films.
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At 59, she was invited to return to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, for the production of the opera “Daughter of the Regiment” by Donizetti. The invitation came personally from Director Bing, with whom Velich had a complicated relationship. He found her a rebellious and eccentric person, but he was respected by her talent. He could not see better than her partnering with stars such as Pavarotti and Sutherland.
Velich was given a non-singing role, but as soon as she appeared on stage as the duchess, the entire audience rose to their feet to applaud her. After the performance, Pavarotti kissed her hand with the words: “You are the happiest singer of the century!”
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Vienna gives eternal tribute to Gena Dimitrova
This mega star of the opera scene, however, remained modest, human and patriotic until the end of his life. He says to debutant Gena Dimitrova: “Geno, your voice is unique. Only with Turandot, Abigail from “Nabucco” and Lady Macbeth from “Macbeth” can you conquer the world.” That’s how it goes. Two great Bulgarian women support each other and indeed each individually conquers the world, proudly bearing the title of Bulgarian.
On September 1, 1996, the Vienna Staatsoper lowered black flags on its facade. Luba Velich is dead. All of Austria learns the sad news, and the mourning procession turns into a mass demonstration. In a retro cafe in Vienna, her admirers have created a club named after her. And after the Bulgarian woman’s death, they continue to gather there and listen to her recordings. This club in the center of Vienna still operates under her name.
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Did you know that there are people who remember that at the beginning of her career she sang as a chorister in the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral? And more interesting facts from her life: She was invited to become an artist at the National Theater, but the then director of the opera, Dragan Kurdzhiev, “didn’t let her” – said that she should study to be a singer.
Her debut took place on September 20, 1937 in the role of Neda in Leoncavallo’s Clowns. Then Puccini’s “Bohemia” is loaded – such as Mimi and Musetta, Desdemona in Verdi’s “Otello”, Manon in “Manon Lescaut”, Anna Reich in “The Merry Windsors”, Rosalinda from “The Bat”, and dozens more roles in operas by Wagner, Richard Strauss, Weber and many others.
Luba Velich gave up her stage appearances in 1958. He continues, however, to be filmed in the cinema and on television. Until the end of her days, she remained an artist devoted to art.
Her voice was recorded by the largest record companies: Columbia Records, Decca Records, Philips Records, and to this day these recordings are in the archives of the largest opera houses and radio stations in the world.
Emmy MARIANSKA
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#Court #York #Bulgarian #Luba #Velich #greater #Maria #Kalas
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