Anna Tomowa-Sintow was born in 1941 in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria.
She studied voice at the National Conservatory of Sofia and then
joined the Opera Studio of the Leipzig Opera. There in 1967 she
made her professional stage debut as Abigaille
in Nabucco. She did not follow
that renowned vocal-killer by moving quickly into the heavier
roles. Instead she gradually built a repertoire of more lyric
parts such as in Mozart and Richard Strauss. In 1972, she joined
the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin,
where she continued to expand her repertoire with the Countess
in Le Nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan
tutte, Ariadne auf
Naxos, Aida, Tosca,
Der Rosenkavalier, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin
and Eugene Onegin. Her first
international breakthrough occurred in Paris
in 1973 with the Verdi Requiem at the Dôme
des Invalides and a few months later in Geneva
with Otello.
1973
was the defining year in Tomowa-Sintow’s
career as she auditioned for Karajan at the Salzburg Summer
Festival. She was immediately engaged and continued to work
with him for 17 years in a collaboration that extended from
stage to concert hall and included tours to America
and Japan
as well as numerous recordings and films. From 1973 to 1991
she appeared each year at the Salzburg
festivals during which many of her opera performances were filmed
particularly those by Richard Strauss including Ariadne,
Marschallin in Der
Rosenkavalier Countess Madelaine in Capriccio along with the Four Last
Songs. She also sang Donna Anna, twice, at Salzburg
as well as Tosca. To her Strauss roles she has since added the
Kaiserin in Die Frau ohne Schatten and the mammoth part of the Ägyptische Helena. She has sung with all the
great conductors and at the major opera houses of the world.
During her Salzburg
years Anna sang both Verdi’s Leonora and Amelia in a spectacular
production of Un Ballo in Maschera
in Geneva in 1984
with Pavarotti and Cappuccilli - recorded
for television. The role of Helena
indicates a voice capable of heavier roles and over the past
fifteen years or so she has not feared to move in this direction.
She sang her first Turandot at the re-opening of the Liceu in Barcelona
in 1999 having already taken on Norma in 1995 and added
Santuzza in Cavalleria
Rusticana and Salome in 1997.
The
present recording was made just after Tomowa-Sintow’s
Leipzig years and
just as her international reputation was taking wing. Kurt Masur, the renowned Kapellmeister of the Leipzig
theatre as well as chief conductor of the Gewandhaus
Orchestra is on the rostrum. Immensely experienced in working
with singers his support of Anna is a point of strength throughout
this recording. Masur’s broad supportive tempi can be appreciated in the orchestral
introductions to Tatiana’s Letter Scene (tr.1), the Willow
Song from Otello (tr.2)
and Arabella’s Monologue (tr.6). They also show
the fine balance and clarity of the recording.
For
this recording Tomowa-Sintow seems
to have chosen women in emotionally fraught situations. Not
surprisingly her professional debut role of Tatiana is first
off. The soprano’s light silvery lyric voice is ideal here for
both the music and expressing Tatiana’s varying emotions ranging
from frustration at Onegin’s presumptuous
rejection of her to foreboding for the future (tr.1). Desdemona’s
premonitions are even more fraught. She looks back to her untroubled
childhood in the Willow Song with its reprised phrases
of Salce, Salce (tr.2) before launching into the Ave Maria
(tr.3). Her attack on that launch note is secure as is her highest
register throughout. She sounds a young Desdemona, but is fully
able to colour and cover her tone to bring a wide range of expression
to her singing. Her Forza del Destino Leonora is less convincing. There I find her voice
needing more heft, colour and expression (tr.4). Her singing
of Ariadne and Arabella
finds the form of the Tchaikovsky, with her voice absolutely
secure at the high tessitura. There is some inevitable softening
of the consonants to the detriment of diction; as much a fault
of the composer perhaps as the singer.
Apart
from my minor reservations Anna Tomowa-Sintow
meets the varying challenges of this recital with distinction
and much promise, later realised to the full. Although of somewhat
short measure, this disc provides an excellent example of the
singer at the outset of her considerable career.
Robert J Farr
see also
Review
by Göran Forsling
Anna 
