The Israeli Opera Singer Who Sings In Azeri

Camellia believes that her career path allowed her to fulfill the dreams that her ancestors dreamt, but were unable to realize: “My mother took me to see the Azerbaijani ballet as a child.  After that, I fell in love with the theater. Soon afterwards, I asked for a piano and began to learn how to play for the next seven years. I went to music school in Baku and began to sing as well. After a number of years, I decided to sing opera.”

Like most other Jewish immigrants to Israel, Camellia struggled to make it professionally in Israel. When she first made Aliyah, Azerbaijan was in a mess as the Soviet Union just disintegrated: “Baku then was not like Baku today.” When she first came to Israel, she was 19, but life was difficult, so she went to the Ukraine for eight years, where she went to music school: “I graduated from a music vocational school with a vocal class in Crimea, Simferopol and the Donetsk Academy of Music in a conductor’s class.”

She returned to Israel, but it took her time to obtain her dream of being an opera singer. “Many professional people come from all around the world to the Jewish state,” she noted, thus making it very competitive to make it here professionally. “In 2009, I did a test for new immigrants and got help. I got a piano.I received good grades. After that, no one helps and everyone is alone. Therefore, I worked at supersal, a gym, as a clerk and it took time to be an opera singer. I did a test. I did auditions for the next year.  It came to 2013 and only then I got into music. I did not work in my field throughout that period of time.”