Born in Rousse, Ventseslav Anastasov is part of the third generation of one of the most famous opera singer families in Bulgaria. He began studying music at an early age and played the piano and classic guitar; later, he began studying opera singing under maestro Georgi Deliganev. In 1990, he moved to Sofia where he continued his education under maestro Asen Selimski at the National music academy; he graduated with the highest of honors in 1996.
In 1995, he debuted in „Il Barbiere di Seviglia“ in the role of Figaro, to a great success; shortly after, he was hired by the Rousse opera as a lead singer where he performed the following roles: Belcore in “The Elixir of Love”, Marcelo/Shanard in “La Boheme”, Sharpless in “Madama Butterfly”, Zurga in “Les pêcheurs de perles”, Dr. Malatesta in “Don Pasquale” and many others. Later, he took part in a tour during which he performed all these roles in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the UK.
He debuted at the Varna summer festival with „Fabola per la Scala” in 2002 and was immediately invited to perform the following roles during the upcoming seasons: Germont in “La Traviata”, Onegin in “Eugene Onegin”, Belcore in “The Elixir of Love”, Ezio in “Attila”, Count Luna “Il Trovatore”, Don Giovanni, Marquis de Posa in “Don Carlos” and others.
In 2005, he debuted at the Sofia Opera in the role of Escamillo for which he earned high praise from both the audience and critics. He debuted at Palau de lеs Arts in Valencia in the same role, with conductor maestro Lorin Maasel and director Carlos Saura. He eventually played the role of Marquise di Posa in “Don Carlo”, again with conductor maestro Lorin Maazel. During the 2007-2008 season, he took an intensive part in the Palau de lеs Arts’ productions, performing in “Betrothal in a Monastery” conducted by maestro D. Jurowski, in “Turandot” together with Maria Gulegina and Marco Berti under the conductorship of Zubin Meta and in the Metropolitan Opera production of “Iphigénie en Aulide“, together with maestro Placido Domingo.
In 2009, he debuted as Rigoletto at the Sofia Opera and was then invited to take part in the St. Margarethen festival in Austria, in order to repeat his success with the same role. Meanwhile, he performed as Scarpia in “Tosca”, as Figaro and count Almaviva in “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Nabucco”, “McBeth”; he quite successfully performed the role of Marcelo in “La Boheme” at the Solothurn summer festival in Switzerland.
He debuted at the “Massimo” theater in Palermo in the opera “Simon Boccanegra”; eventually, he was invited by maestro Lorin Maazel to take part in the solemn opening of the opera theater in Guangzhou with “Turandot”. He debuted at Regio di Parma with great success in the role of Ezio in “Attila” after which he performed at the Sofia Opera, in the Gena Dimitrova Memorial concert. In 2011, he returned to Palau de lеs Arts in order to take part in a production of “Boris Godunov” directed by Andrei Konchalovsky.
He enjoyed great success in the role of Barnaba in “La Gioconda” as well, together with Elisabetta Fiorillo, Roberto Scandiuzzi and Giovanna Casolla at the “Politeama Greco” theater in Lecce; he also took part in the production of „Der König Kandaules“ at Teatro “Massimo” in Palermo. He recently debuted at the “San Carlo” theater in Naples, in a production of “Rigoletto” together with Dmitri Hvorostovki, Desirée Rancatore and Stefan Pop, with conductor maestro Pier Giorgio Morandi. In June that same year, he debuted at the “Giuseppe Verdi” lyrical theater in Trieste in the role of Ezio in “Attila” together with his brother Orlin Anastasov for which he received great acknowledgment.
He took part in many gala concerts at the 2013 Solothurn festival and performed different roles such as Renato in “Un ballo in Maschera” and Amonasro in “Aida” alongside stars such as Mario Malanini and Michèle Crider. In 2014, he performed the role of Friedrich in the opera “Das Liebesverbot” at Teatro “Verdi” in Trieste. In 2015, he took part in the Split summer festival in Croatia where he performed as the Dagon High Priest in “Samson and Dalila” and as Amonasro in “Aida”. That same year, he performed in “Turandot” with conductor maestro Zubin Meta and Andrea Bocelli in Lajatico (Tuscany).
In 2016, he performed in “Ernani” at the Split opera theater and in “La forza del destino” in Sofia. Later that same year, he again took on the role of Escamillo in “Carmen” together with Anita Rahvileshvili and in 2017 he performed as Shchelkalov in “Boris Godunov” at the Marseille opera theater.
He is a Sofia Opera lead singer and performs in the operas “Don Pasquale”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Adriana Lecouvreur”, “Falstaff”, “Tosca”, “La Traviata”, “Cavalleria Rusticana”, “Gianni Schicci”, “Rigoletto”, “Chichovtsi”, “Un ballo in Maschera”, “Don Quixote”, “Nabucco”, “La forza del destino”, “Madama Butterfly”, “Il Barbiere di Seviglia”, “Lohengrin”, “Tannhäuser” and others.
