Viktoria Nikolova (Bulgaria) has graduated from the National Music School “Liubomir Pipkov” in Sofia where she was born. Her training continued with a Bachelor in classical singing and a Minor in Cultural Studies at New Bulgarian University. Trained as a lyric soprano she decided to look for further development as a singer, performer, creator and collaborator, which brought her to The Netherlands. In 2017 she graduated from the Master in Classical Singing from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, with distinction, as a student of Rita Dams and Maria Acda-Maas. Viktoria has performed as a soloist with orchestras in Bulgaria and The Netherlands. She has sung since an early age on Bulgarian classical stages with the children’s choir “Bodra Smyana”, participating in opera performances of the National Opera and Ballet Sofia since age 11 and from 2010 as a choir member of the opera house. In 2016 Viktoria took part in a project of Ton Koopman, a collaboration between The Royal Conservatory and The Julliard School - Hohe 
Messe (BWV 232) by J. S. Bach performed in New York and Boston, US and around The Netherlands. 

Viktoria performs in various singing styles, from classical and contemporary to folklore and 
electronic music. Her recent projects are the ensemble SamoDivas which she formed in 2019 and “Metamorphosis of a Female Character”, a dramatic and humorous music theater performance about Nina Zarechnaya, an underexposed character from The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. It premiered on Grachtenfestival, Amsterdam 2019. The conceptual performance with “Die Badkhonim”, a group that derives from the melodrama genre that developed in the late 18th century, called “A Tale of Two Lights”, and an installation performance devised by Johanna Kotlaris, “A Heartwarming Bone Cracking”, in 2018. In 2018/2019 she took part in the Master Praktikum program at Groot Omroepkoor for the season. Currently, Viktoria is working with NKK NXT, a traineeship ensemble program by the Dutch Chamber Choir, she is also taking part in this year’s edition of Opera Forward Festival as a soloist in the opera Five Steps for One Leap and in the project co-production of Silbersee, Gouden Haas and NKK NXT – Kaapdiegoeiekoop. In 2020 she started a collective together with Bahzad Sulaiman (performer, choreographer) and Christopher Collings (trumpet, electronics) with whom she is producing conceptual performance artworks. 

Melodramas & Tales project 

Our group consists of 4 musicians demonstrating a full scope of stage arts. We are: 
Fortepianist Ilil Danin, Cellist Shuhei Takezawa, Soprano Viktoria Nikolova, and Yotam Gaton 
as narrator and violinist.

 Being performers of historically informed performance practice, we 
create a story which is directly connected to the music and inspired by it. Both the music 
and the text are performed in their historical context: the music is played with historical 
awareness on period instruments, and the story is made according to - and after historical 
events. Other than composing music for a text as done in melodramas, here the process is 
reversed and text is written to fit the music. In this way the rhetorical sense both of the 
music and of our story is amplified. The text is at times combined with the music and at 
times is narrated alone, as the music at times is played with no narration. As a spectator in 
one of our earlier projects once said: “it’s a kind of 17th century total theater”.

Members: Alexandra Shkodrova - vocals, gadulka, production
Nikola Petrov - celtic bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy, production
Alexander Nikolov - percussion

Past members:

Ivan Ivanov: flutes, cornetto, Viktoria Nikolova - voice, Zdravko Peev - ud, Evgeni Chakalov: flutes

Eriney is a young neofolk band based in Sofia, Bulgaria.  The group creates their own original music inspired by the Balkan and Oriental folklore, Bulgarian traditions and Western European medieval music.

Kaapdiegoeiekoop is een voorstelling die juist nú gemaakt had moeten worden. Een oeropera over gewin boven moraal, kapitalistisch denken, de macht van olie en de verdovende werking van snelle consumptie. Niet getreurd, met dit meeslepende fragment weet je alvast wat je te wachten staat. Silbersee en Gouden Haas vonden samen met NKK NXT toch een vorm om scenes uit de voorstelling naar Oerol te brengen. 

De stemmen, instrumenten en geluiden zijn allemaal opgenomen op het strand en smelten samen in een waanzinnige videoclip. In deze scène zingt het koor over de worsteling van de mens met de soms verlammende werkelijkheid van de actualiteit en de hang naar kortstondig geluk en snelle suikers om zichzelf mee te verdoven. 

Team & cast

Artistieke leiding: Gienke Deuten, Romain Bischoff 

Libretto: Jibbe willems 

Componist: Frank Wienk (Binkbeats) 

Performers: Björk Níelsdóttir, Michaela Riener, Tiemo Wang, Brechtje Kat, Carl Refos, Guus van der Steen, Jonathan Bonny, Yung-Tuan Ku 

Met: NKK NXT (Nederlands Kamerkoor): Veronika Akhmetchina, Viktoria Nikolova, Sylvia Boone, Elea Bekkers, Arjan Lienaerts,

 Florian Slangen, Hans Vermunt Techniek: Maurits Thiel 

Productie: Carry Hendriks, Joppe Kos 

Film: Ilja Lammers 

Kaapdiegoeiekoop wordt ontwikkeld in samenwerking met Oerol Mede mogelijk gemaakt door: Fonds Podiumkunsten, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Lira Fonds Met dank aan: het HEMbrugterrein Beeld: Bowie Verschuuren

Duration 0:20

Five Steps for One Leap (OFF Talent # 5)

The OFF Talents are students from various art schools. They are inspired by an Amsterdammer who makes a difference in his or her environment. This results in five brand new short operas from a new generation of music theater makers, to be seen during the OFF Nights. No biographical representations, but an artistic response to the encounter with a special person. While the productions are still in full development, we are already looking at what started the meeting with the students. 

Five Steps for One Leap has as inspiration: Amsterdammer Charlotte Heine. 

Charlotte Heine got excited about the amount of food being thrown away, and went into action. She collects fruit and vegetables that supermarkets no longer want to sell and turns them into jams and chutneys. The students were in the kitchen with Charlotte. Inspired by her positive energy, they make an opera about overcoming fears. In the process, they always want to stay close to genuine feelings: from themselves as makers, from the singer and musicians - and ultimately from the audience.

The performances of the OFF Talents are free and can be booked via the link below. In addition to your free ticket, you only need a free ticket for the correct OFF Night, which you can reserve here: March 20 , 21 , and 22.

Team & cast

Composition
Michiel Augustijn, Codarts University of the Arts, Rotterdam

Director
Catoo Lustig, Academy of Theater and Dance, Amsterdam

Scenography
Mariska Werkman, Academy of Theater and Dance, Amsterdam

Dramaturgy
Na'ama Hurwitz, University of Amsterdam

Production
manager Robin Ebing, Academy of Theater and Dance, Amsterdam

Production
manager Jorien Werkhoven, Academy of Theater and Dance, Amsterdam

Performers 

Viktoria Nikolova - Voice, 

Mees Vervuurt - Piano

Rodo Nijhoff - Viola

Music Theater Performance: 1 hour

Performers: Viktoria Nikolova (creator, voice), Bilyana Grudanska (piano), Elisabeth Lusche (trumpet), Natalia Rogalski (voice, direction)

Electronics and composition: Domenic Jarlkaganova

Directors: Natalia Rogalski, Nele Menes, Caecilia Thunnissen (Oorkaan)
Video documentation and trailer: Sabijn Peeters
 

Metamorphosis of a Female Character is a dramatic and humorous music theater performance about Nina Zarechnaya - an underexposed character from The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.

Chekhov’s play indicates that Nina’s character is away from home for two years. In that short time this 19-year old runs away from her family, moves to a big city, has no money, follows her dream to become an actress, gets involved in a love triangle, gets pregnant, cares for her fatally sick child, loses that child and her lover, and develops an acting block.

When it was not common for women to have the opportunity to develop their full potential, Nina tells us a story of courage, endurance, empowerment and maturing out of life’s hardships. Her overwhelming and confusing experiences can be compared to our experience of modern-day life in a fast-changing society.

Through all this chaos, Nina chooses not to identify with the narrative of a victim; she goes through an unseen - until now - metamorphosis transcends her grief and finds a strong inner connection to her true self and art. She serves as a powerful role model for us today.

SPRITZL finale 2019

 Performed by Viktoria Nikolova, Nagato Mugler, L U C Y L O V E  

Duration: 6:14

Place: Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam

With Spr! Tzl, the Dutch opera company, Silbersee identifies promising new talent and guides them in their makership on their way to the future. In this workshop for young makers, the disciplines of music and theater are further explored, deepened and enriched. From spoken word to opera, from rap to dance and from grunge to cyber art: everything can be discussed at Spr! Tzl. Special attention is paid to the use of the human voice, which is also a spearhead in Silbersee's work.

Short pop-up performance 

Duration: 5:52 min.

Dancers: Brecht Louwerens, Delano Hanemaaijer, Gerinio Levar, Giorgio Lepelblad, Maxime Abbenhues, Mees Meeuwsen

 Soprano: Viktoria Nikolova

Percussion: Antoine Josselin

 Text: Karawane - Hugo Ball

The concept of the performance derives from the melodrama genre that developed in the 
late 18th century. There, the fusion of recited text and music creates a breath-taking 
outcome and presents drama in an outmost special way. The project involves storytelling 
with music. With words and music, we set an atmosphere and tell a story that is meant to 
capture the listeners as we carry them through old worlds to the life of our cultural 
ancestors. 

The performative installation was developed in collaboration with musicians and visual artists by Dimitri van den Wittenboer. It was shown daily during the graduation festival at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague 2019.

The Christian Mass connects dramatic and ritualistic elements using choreography, speech, music and audience participation. In the dramatic meaning everything one sees It represents chronologically the life of Jesus. The ritualistic meaning is his true presence in the bread and the wine at the Mass after the consecration. 

 interested in reworking the Christian Mass with the aim to intensify its numinous effect. 

Comparing the mass to tribal rituals this was a try-out to reduce it to the essence. The script was focused on participatory part, singing and and incarnating expressions. In collaborations with musicians we edited scores of a selection of Gregorian chants emphasizing simplicity and repetition. Together with a group of visual artist a public courtyard was transformed onto a church. The authentic presence of the work created much confrontation with both liberal and catholic groups who were trying to stop it. In conversations the Dimitri was trying to explain his interest in bringing art and religion closer together through their common interest in the sublime.

An audio visual experiment

Duration: 6:29 min

Participants: Cristopher Collings, Juan Verdaguer, Ivan Pavlov, Elisabeth Luche, Ana Luísa Ribeiro, Viktoria Nikolova

Saound, video and editing: Viktoria Nikolova

Inspired by the futurist manifesto The art of Noise by Luigi Russolo, and the curios soundscape of a musicians house, Viktoria explores the ways of capturing a space with a 15 minute improvisation. One time shot, captured by her and 4 people improvising in each room of the house recorded in every room individually. There was a recording made between all the rooms, a channel capturing the outside garden space and one attached to the camera. 

  In the house on De Sillestraat, 8 students from The Royal Conservatory in The Hague are not aloud to play their instruments, and yet, sound is everywhere. They can be heard but rarely seen. And to their accompaniment comes every footstep from the 2nd floor and in front of the house. Every toilet flush and shower can be heard from every point in the two story space. The experiment had as initial idea to capture the lack of personal space where there is no good sound and visual isolation. 

A Heartwarming Bone Cracking, 2018
Installation, Performance: 20 min., Audio MP3: 17:30 min

Performers: Johanna Kotlaris, Sara Moreira Marques, Viktoria Nikolova
Video documentation: Marta Hryniuk
Sound recording and editing: Siamak Anvari

In A Heartwarming Bone Cracking three performers guide the audience into a non-linear narration of projection, desire and resistance towards an unknown other, a city or a lover. Through text and melodic sequences that reveal emotional conditions, memories, statements and speculation, the performance oscillates between monologue, choir and dialogue.

The installation is built with construction materials normally implemented for absorption and diffusion of sound or insulation. These materials are re-implemented as room dividers that play with ranges of visibility and audibility. Without the performance, the installation is accompanied by the vocals as stereo audio piece on speakers.

Without the performance, the installation is accompanied by the vocals as MP3 audio piece. Depending on the form in which the work is presented, it can be played by different types of speakers or exist as independent work.

FIVE STEPS FOR ONE LEAP

Opera Forward Festival 2020

Saturday 21 March 2020 - 17:30 - 18:05                                                                                                                                                                                           Dutch National Opera, Atrium Hall

Saturday 21 March 2020 - 20:30 - 21:05                                                                                                                                                                                          Dutch National Opera, Atrium Hall 

Sunday 22 March 2020 - 17:30 - 18:05                                                                                                                                                                                             Dutch National Opera, Atrium Hall