He had only heard two or three bars from the soprano solo of Johann Sebastian Bach's “Magnificat” when Herbert von Karajan interrupted the audition of a young soprano for the world premiere of Carl Orff's “De temporum fine comœdia” in 1973 in Salzburg and exclaimed: "That's exactly what I've been waiting for." For the Bulgarian singer it was the prelude to a seventeen year long collaboration with the conductor who, as she later reported, did everything in his power to "transform a Slavic voice into an instrument for Mozart's music" . When she took up the part of the Countess in “Le Nozze di Figaro” (1977) under his direction, it could be heard that the transformation of the voice with its “Slavic” vibrato into a soft, modulatable instrument for Mozart's music was not yet complete was completed.
Anna Tomowa-Sintow, born in Stara-Zagora, Bulgaria, studied at the Sofia Conservatory with Georgi Slatew-Cherkin, who had also taught Lyuba Velich. After graduating, she went to the Leipzig Opera in 1966 and made her debut in 1967 in the role of Verdi's Abigaille in “Nabucco”, which is hybrid because of its extreme vocal and technical demands. In the following years, because she was also trained as a pianist, she was able to prepare central parts of the youthful dramatic field - Leonora, Violetta, Desdemona, Manon Lescaut and Butterfly - just like Strauss' Arabella and Ariadne. Since 1972, now in the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she has expanded her repertoire to include Mozart's Contessa and Fiordiligi, Verdi's Aida, Wagner's Elisabeth and Elsa, Strauss' Marschallin and Kaiserin and Puccini's Tosca. It's the gameswith whom she toured in Salzburg and Vienna, Munich and Milan, London and New York over the next two and a half decades.
Failure of the record companies
When asked about her favorite roles, she named "my three aces": Aida, Arabella and Donna Anna.
When she recorded the Mozart part under Karajan (1987), her voice had the cut of a Mozart soprano and also possessed the energies of an Italian spinto.
After a Munich performance of Verdi's “Aida” (1979) under Riccardo Muti, Leonie Rysanek said to her: “Her beautiful voice is perfect for Italian roles.”
The recording shows that the Radamès from Plácido Domingo did not have a similarly convincing partner in his three studio productions. The high C in the aria "O patria mia", because of which some singers gave up the role, pours the light of the moon over the scene. As with Julia Varady, it was an incomprehensible omission of the record companies that she did not get the opportunity to record her central Verdi roles in the eighties.
All the more gratifying that she was able to sing and record the Marschallin in “Rosenkavalier” under Karajan in Salzburg. Enthusiastic praise came from Karajan's first studio marshal: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. The 1985 recording of Richard Strauss' “Four Last Songs” shows how fruitful her collaboration with the sound sensualist Karajan was. Karajan had already savored the exquisite surface appeal of these elegiac chants in a recording with Gundula Janowitz. Anna Tomowa-Sintow's voice is bitter than that of her German colleague, warmer in sound, more sensual in expression, richer in vocal colors. The “nicer” of the two recordings? It can only be the one that is sounding at the moment.
After her departure from the stage, gradually completed in the first decade of this century, she gave master classes and worked as a juror in singing competitions. Today Anna Tomowa-Sintow is eighty years old.