It can definitely be said that this Bulgarian singer was of world renown. Her name will remain in the annals of singing art right next to the names of her contemporaries: Callas, Tebaldi, Del Monaco Tito Gobbi and Boris Hristov, to whom she was an equal partner on the first music stage in the world, the Milanese Scala.
The path of the girl from the Pazardzhik village of Tserovo to the first opera theaters in the world is amazing. It is worthy of a biographical feature film, such as are made in other countries, but not in our country / this wonderful art - opera has recently been out of favor with the authorities!/.
Here is a brief summary of this rapid path. She was born on January 24, 1905, into a poor but bright railway worker family. She sang since she was a child. She was born with a voice. She studied junior high school in Panagyurishte, and high school at the American College in Samokov. As a student, she was the "star" of the school choirs and operettas. Then she began taking lessons with the founder of our vocal school, Ivan Vulpe. She was not accepted into the conservatory due to... "unmusicality"/!/. Embittered and offended, in 1928 she left for America, to her emigrant brother. She worked as a saleswoman and lived in poverty. She saved money to go to Italy, the homeland of opera. In 1929, she entered a competition at the "Verdi" conservatory in Milan. There were only three places - for one soprano, one tenor and one mezzo-soprano. More than 70 candidates applied, and she won first place. Here is the jury's assessment: 1/a mezzo-soprano voice, 2/ undeniable musicality, 3/ a bright theatrical temperament and 4/ a beautiful stage figure and expressive face. With these four short phrases we can define Elena Nikolay's gift. A gift, as they say, from Nature or from God.
In fact, at that time she still bore her baptismal name, Stoyanka Nikolova. She studied hard, lived poorly - once she was left without money and food for ten days! She graduated with honors in 1933 as a student of the famous maestro Vincenzo Pintorio. In the same year she made her debut, and with one of the most difficult and great mezzo-soprano roles, Azzocena from Verdi's “Il Trovatore”. This took place on the stage of the small town of Salo /at that time in Italy opera performances were performed even in the villages!/. There, the impresario Canella, with whom she began working, decided that the young and unknown Bulgarian should adopt the more spectacular name Elena Nikolay and she remained with it for the rest of her life /1983/.
The following year, 1934, a festival was organized in Cremona in honor of the composer Amilcare Ponchielli. In his operas “La Gioconda” and ”The Prodigal Son”, under the direction of the renowned Tullio Serafin, she performed the main mezzo-soprano parts with such great success that she was accepted as the “miracle of the festival”. An invitation followed to the second most important Italian theater, San Carlo, Naples. There, the young Bulgarian triumphed in front of a very reserved and conservative audience. She introduced herself as Azucena, and also played in "The Rose-Rose Cavalier" by Richard Strauss and "Boris Godunov" by Mussorgsky. She became a regular soloist of this elite troupe, followed by invitations to tour throughout Italy. Soon came the appointment to La Scala. She began to work with the leading conductors and directors, to partner with the stars of the Italian stage. And these are: Aureliano Pertile, Beneamino Gigli, Tancredi Pazero, Cesare Siepi, Tito Gobbi, Magda Oliviero, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Maria Canilla and our brilliant tenor Todor Mazarov. For three decades, Elena Nikolay has been at the top. A regular soloist at La Scala, a constant guest of the major Italian theaters /Turin, Venice, Rome, Palermo, Parma, Genoa, Florence/, on most European stages, and also in both Americas.
By 1949, she had performed 20 central mezzo-soprano roles on the Milan stage with great success, including: Eboli, Santuzza, Adalgisa, Ulrika, Amneris, Isolde, Dalila, Charlotte, Orpheus, Clytemnestra.
In 1951, after a scandal with the Italian music critic Franco Abbiati, she was punished by the management of La Scala with exclusion from the soloist cast for three years. For better or for worse?! During this period, Elena Nikolay began an intensive touring activity in Europe, North and South America. She traveled extensively and achieved success in Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, Metropolitan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mexico City, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Havana, Santiago de Chile, Canada, Colombia, Venezuela... In 1954 she returned as Queen of La Scala. She performed again as Amneris and Eboli, then as Dalila and Charlotte, sang in R. Strauss's "Elektra", and appeared on stage with Callas, Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Di Stefano, Carlo Bergonzi, Boris Hristov, Tandredi Pazero. She was recognized as the best mezzo-soprano of her time. And for good reason.
She masters her exceptional voice in volume / nearly three octaves / and beauty, masterfully, perfectly. This is a very warm and noble mezzo-soprano of a rare quality. / In fact, true mezzo-soprano voices like hers are generally rare. / Her lows are deep, noble, the center powerful, wide, the highs brilliant, soaring, capable of highly constructed parts. Her technique is bel canto, impeccable, allowing her to overcome any score with ease. It allows her to move in a vast repertoire range from Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Gluck, through Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, to Wagner, Richard Strauss, Respighi, Mussorgsky.
She builds her roles on a large scale, but also with subtle psychological nuances, with a true sense of the style and dramaturgy of the work. A musician, an interpreter of the highest class! Moreover, her voice is not only very beautiful, with a noble and soft timbre, also piercing, but also amazingly phonogenic. Her recordings confirm this. Fortunately, Elena Nikolay has quite a few wonderful recordings, three of them are exceptional - of the operas "Peasant Honor", "Don Carlos" and "Lohengrin" /among them a recital record of "Balkanton"/, which have preserved her great art for generations. In the world of opera, recordings often quickly become outdated, not only because of the rapid development of technology, but also because of the interpretations. But it can be said for sure that although made 7-8 decades ago, Elena Nikolay's recordings sound magnificent, and her interpretations are truly benchmark and have not become outdated, on the contrary, they are better than those of a number of today's world-renowned singers. And her unique, large-scale voice is unparalleled today.
The Bulgarian audience could not meet live with the great art of Boris Hristov, declared a “non-returner” by the previous government, but fortunately they came across Elena Nikolay. Her first guest appearance on the Sofia stage was in 1942 with the roles of Azucena and Amneris, in 1943 she performed a charity concert and a radio concert “live” /as it was then/. After the war, she was invited by the authorities in 1956 and 1961. She was again Azucena and Amneris at the Sofia Opera, and with the orchestras of the Sofia, Plovdiv, Ruse and Varna philharmonics she performed concerts with selected arias from her extensive repertoire.
Our other meetings with this great Bulgarian were... in the cinema. In the 60s and early 70s, she starred in 6 Italian film productions, mainly comedies directed by the famous Vittorio De Sica, alongside actors such as Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano. And it can be said that in the cinema she was just as convincing and interesting as in the opera.
The idea of the municipality of Panagyurishte to organize an international Pence competition in her name is commendable. It has had several editions so far and is already gaining strength and authority.