Atanas Margaritov

Atanas Margaritov (Atanas Margaritov Atanasov) is a Bulgarian conductor and violinist.

He was born on January 25, 1912 in Harmanli. He received his first violin lessons in his hometown. In 1930 he graduated from the Pedagogical School in Harmanli. Then he graduated from the State Academy of Music in Sofia in 1933 in the violin class of Todor Torchanov. He also studied conducting.

Over eighty are the opera and ballet titles that the conductor has prepared. Among them are both classical works and Bulgarian productions.

From 1933 to 1936 he was a violinist at the Sofia Opera. In 1936 - 1938 he studied in the conducting class of Weingartner at the Vienna Conservatory. After returning to Bulgaria, from 1940 to 1964 he was a conductor, and from 1964 to 1975 he was the chief conductor of the Sofia Opera. At the same time, from 1938 to 1948 and from 1952 to 1973 he was the conductor of the Kaval Choir. He was the chief conductor of the operas in Ghent, Belgium (1975 – 1979) and Dijon, France (from 1980). In 1948 – 1969 he taught conducting at the Sofia Conservatory, and from 1952 to 1963 also at the opera school at the Conservatory.

He conducted and staged operas and ballets by Giuseppe Verdi, Gaetano Donizetti, Marin Goleminov, Modest Mussorgsky, Georges Bizet.

Some of the recordings made with the conductor have received high praise. These are: Gounod's Faust with Iliya Yosifov, Katya Popova, Nikolay Gyaurov, Georgi Genov, choir and orchestra of the Sofia Opera; Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina with the National Philharmonic Choir, orchestra of the Sofia Opera and soloists Lyubomir Bodurov, Maria Dimchevska, Dimitar Dimitrov, Nadezhda Dobriyanova, Stefan Elenkov, Nikola Gyuzelev, Todor Kostov, Alexandrina Milcheva, Milen Paunov, Dimitar Petkov, Stoyan Popov, Werther Vrachovsky (1978). This recording has been declared one of the best made in the 20th century; Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, recorded from Paris under the baton of André Cluites and Atanas Margaritov, in which Boris Hristov performs the three bass parts of Boris, Pimen and Varlaam; Opera arias performed by Siika Petrov with the Bulgarian National Radio Orchestra (1966); Popular Russian songs with Nikola Ghiuzelev and the Kaval Choir; Choral songs by Bulgarian composers performed by the Kaval Choir; "Britten, Purcell, Paganini" with a Bulgarian chamber orchestra and soloists Dina Schneiderman, Emil Kamilarov, Mincho Minchev (1973).

Died on September 20, 1998.