[3] Ghiaurov married the Bulgarian pianist Zlatina Mishakova in 1956 and Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978, and the two singers frequently performed together.
Ghiaurov's career was launched in 1955, when he won the Grand Prix at the International Vocal Competition in Paris and the First Prize and a gold medal at the Fifth World Youth Festival in Prague.
[4] He made his Italian operatic debut in 1958 in Teatro Comunale Bologna, before starting an international career with his rendition of Varlaam in the opera Boris Godunov at La Scala in 1959.
During the course of his career, he also performed at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, and Paris Opéra.
[4] In October 2000, at the age of 71, he gave an acclaimed performance at the 1st Herbert von Karajan Memorial concert under the baton of James Allen Gähres in Ulm, where he sang opera arias and duets by Cilea, Tchaikovsky and Verdi, together with Mirella Freni.