Vesselina Kasarova

Career Trajectory

A pianist-turned-mezzo-soprano trained in Sofia, Kasarova emerged as an international artist following her triumphant substitution for Marilyn Horne as Tancredi at the 1992 Salzburg Festival, an audacious debut that launched a career of uncommon distinction. Over three decades, she has become the preeminent interpreter of bel canto and Mozart's trouser roles, commanding the world's greatest opera stages with a voice of crystalline clarity and growing dramatic weight. Now recognized as a Kammersängerin in both Bavaria and Austria, she remains a defining mezzo-soprano of the contemporary lyric stage.