Voice: | Soprano |
Nationality: | Bulgarian |
Year of Birth: | 1970 |
Alexandrina Pendatchanska (sometimes written as Alexandrina Pendachanska) (Bulgarian: Александрина Пендачанска) (born 24 September 1970) is a Bulgarian operatic soprano. Increasingly, she is known professionally as Alex Penda.
Pendatchanska was born in Sofia, Bulgaria into a family of renowned Bulgarian musicians. Her grandfather Sasha Popov was a violinist and conductor and the founder of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. Her mother Valerie Popova was an internationally acclaimed soprano who sung regularly at La Scala in Milan from 1983 to 1986. She studied piano from early childhood and graduated from Bulgaria's National School of Music, where her subjects were piano and singing. Her vocal teacher was her mother, Valerie Popova.
Making her stage debut at age 17 in the role of Violetta in La traviata, she soon won the Antonín Dvořák Competition in Karlovy Vary, was placed second in the International Vocal Competition in Bilbao in 1988, and won UNISA singing competition in Pretoria in 1989.
The soprano's debut outside Bulgaria took place in Bilbao, where she sang the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor. Since 1989 she has sung in many of the most prestigious opera houses around the world, including those in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, New York (at the New York City Opera), Rome, Brussels, Washington, Hamburg, Moscow, Turin, Naples, Santa Fe, Bregenz, Monte Carlo, and Tel Aviv.