Svetla Vassileva (opera singer) Svetla Vassileva (opera singer) Svetla Vassileva (), born on September 9, 1965 in Dobrich, Bulgaria, is a Bulgarian opera singer, soprano. Her repertoire includes Desdemona in Otello, Leonora in La forza del destino, Violetta in La traviata, Alice Ford in Falstaff (Verdi), the title role in Madama Butterfly, La rondine, Suor Angelica and Manon Lescaut, Liu in Turandot (Puccini), the title role in Rusalka (Dvorak), Lisa in Pique Dame, Tatiana in Yevgeni Onegin (Tchaikovsky), the title role in Francesca da Rimini (Rachmaninov) and in Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai), Nedda in Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), Zemfira in Aleko (Rachmaninoff), and many others. She
Giuseppe Verdi the death of his mother in June 1851. The fact that this is "the one opera of Verdi's which focuses on a mother rather than a father" is perhaps related to her death. In the winter of 1851–52 Verdi decided to go to Paris with Strepponi, where he concluded an agreement with the Opéra to write what became "Les vêpres siciliennes", his first original work in the style of grand opera. In February 1852, the couple attended a performance of Alexander Dumas "fils"'s play, "The Lady of the Camellias"; Verdi immediately began to compose music for what would later become