/ world today news/ The Opera Prima and the Festival Baroque Orchestra of Zefira Valova fulfilled her long-held dream
Sonia Yoncheva never ceases to surprise and fascinate the Bulgarian audience with every guest appearance on her native stage. This was also the case during her current, long-awaited tour in Sofia with a stylish program dedicated to a bright composer figure emblematic of the creative path of our magnificent soprano – Handel. Her fateful journey – a tiny part of which was witnessed by the audience in the “Bulgaria” Hall in the middle of Holy Week – began in her childhood and has not stopped to this day:
“For me, this concert was a dream! Handel for me is a return to those sounds that I fell in love with when I was very young, before I started singing at all on the big stages. This was the sound I fell in love with and with which I began to learn classical singing, and opera in general as a way of life…” – Sonya shared with undisguised excitement, after the end of the concert.
Since the appearance (in 2017) of her second solo album – “Handel”, with the brand “Sony Classical”, she firmly established herself as a modern sophisticated interpreter of music that does not appear so often in the programs of opera concerts and events. That is why the many Bulgarian admirers of the soprano have been dreaming of hearing her live for years, precisely with arias from Handel’s famous, but too rarely staged nowadays operas.
Six years later, this – as it turned out – mutual dream has come true and the gratitude for this truly great event in our cultural life is shared Sonya Yoncheva and the perfect musicians from The Baroque Festival Orchestra “The Art of the Baroque“ – with founder and inspired concertmaster, Zefira Valova.
“I wanted to sing this concert for you and I am very glad that I was able to do it with a Bulgarian orchestra! I had heard about Zefira Valova a few years ago, when she did her Baroque Festival in Bulgaria, and I immediately thought to myself: “How interesting! Finally, a Bulgarian baroque musician has the courage to carry out such a serious project. This music is by no means easy, but when we listen to it, it gets directly “under the skin” and into the soul of people. That’s why I’m very glad that Zefira helped me…” – with gratitude stressed Sonia Yoncheva and added with a smile: Yesterday we met for the first time… (the day before the concert – b.a.). We did 1-2 hours of rehearsal and the result you saw was a meeting and love at first sight! And we brought it to you, I hope – and for many more meetings in the future.”
For those unfamiliar with the details the world of Big Musicthe incredible thing about this whole story is the speed of the project’s implementation – unthinkable even for our highly virtualized and high-tech era.
While for the listeners, in the extremely full “Bulgaria” Hall – both with regular music lovers and connoisseurs of the classics, as well as with curious ones who almost crossed its threshold for the first time because of the name Sonia Yoncheva, everything seemed to be the result of long rehearsals and confirmed partnership over time. So incredible was the delight of the crystal sound of the rare baroque instruments and of Sonja’s unique performance of Handel’s opera pearls – adored during the German-British composer’s lifetime (the last quarter of the 17th – the first half of the 18th century) by generations of enthusiastic connoisseurs.
Of course, for musicians of the class of Sonia Yoncheva and the Ensemble “The Art of Baroque”, such “express” projects are not rare – both because of their numerous commitments and because of the purely physical impossibility of long rehearsals. But with them, communication is obviously carried out on another level, far more important for which – apart from their professional experience and their frequent encounters with this magical music, is the personal dedication and devotion with which they perform it. Sonja’s extensive experience with world-leading baroque orchestras undoubtedly also speaks for itself.
The audience felt this even with the opening Concerto Grosso in B flat major, Op. 6, No. 7, HWV 325 for strings and basso continuo and with the first aria – the famous one „There was never a shadow“ (“The Shadow Never Was”), also known as “Largo” from “Xerxes” (1738). The aria is present in various programs of Sonja, as well as in her participation in special events, such as: “Christmas with the Federal President” in 2020, under the patronage of Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the cathedral near Berlin. But also on the native stage in Sofia, the touchingly affecting composition shook the hall with the emotion in the interpretation of Sonya and Zefira Valova’s musicians. The denser, deeper and more colorful sound of our magnificent soprano also stood out – unlike her earlier performances of the same work. Her voice now had distinctly dramatic undertones without detracting from the freshness inherent in her previous performances in this genre repertoire.
No less fascinating was the performance of the introductory song, contrastingly cheerful and melodic Cleopatra’s aria “Non disperse, chi sa” (“Don’t despair, who knows”) from the first act of “Julius Caesar in Egypt” (1724). This is the moment when the queen of Egypt, learning of the sacrifice made by her brother at the feet of the ruler of Rome, to avoid his wrath, seems to encourage herself, saying:
“Don’t despair, who knows?
if you don’t have him in the kingdom,
you will be lucky in love.
Looking at a beauty,
in it you will find
comfort to the heart.”
But the actual first climax of the recital came a little later – with Handel’s recitative of the same title: “What do I feel” („That I feel”) and the subsequent expressive, stirring aria from the end of the second act – „If you pity me you don’t feel“ (“If You Don’t Pity Me”). It is no coincidence that Sonya admits that she perceives the aria as: “A lofty, mournful prayer and complaint, very reminiscent of Bach’s Passion: “If you do not have mercy on me, O fair heavens, I will die!” Expressing the drama of this prayer, I also reveal the hidden power of the Queen, who dared to challenge the Gods , claiming a power far beyond the ordinary.”[1]
The program of the recital of Handel’s operas, for the most part, is explainably also present in the mentioned disc of Sonia Yoncheva, from 2017. Arias and recitatives from different periods of the large-scale vocal-dramatic work of the eminent baroque composer were performed, such as:Rinaldo’, ‘Alcina’, ‘Teodora’, as well as his purely instrumental works. Step by step, performers and audience walked together towards the evening’s final gradation, the high point of which began with excerpts from “Julius Caesar” and „With darkness deep“ from the oratorio “Theodora” and ended with what has become a standard for interpreters of the Baroque repertoire – “Let me cry” (“Let Me Cry”) from “Rinaldo” and in the performance of the encore: “Lament of Dido” from the first opera by the Londoner Henry Purcell “Dido and Aeneas” (1689).
From the first to the last moment on the stage, Sonia Yoncheva led the audience through the depths of sensual exaltation, characteristic of Handel’s entire oeuvre. In the hall hovered the feeling of something unreal, hypersensitive and at the same time intimate. “Returning to reality,” after another lovely aria, concerto, or paschal, was like awakening from a beautiful dream, during which the soul had inhabited magical, transcendental worlds.
In her own waters in the baroque repertoire, from where the path of our superb opera soloist to the big roles and stages actually started, Sonia Yoncheva outlines the details with confidence and relief, with exquisite ease in leading the voice and with plasticity of the phrase – with softness and fiery passion, but and with power and decisiveness where the score calls for it. In other words, everything: from the complete musical preparation, singing and beautiful gestures on stage, with the unbuttoning and putting together of the spectacular, without pompous extravagances, the hairstyle, the elegant and unobtrusive make-up, is subject to thorough consideration and the finest psychological adjustments, with goal – the full aesthetic presentation of the baroque opera masterpieces. And Sonya’s voice – gently lyrical, captivating with confessional sadness or with love nostalgia, corresponds perfectly to each of the presented virtuoso arias. She has proven to have the necessary vocal performance technique for them, she does not lack courage and sensitivity – necessary to sing almost everything that is expected of her. At the same time, to do it convincingly and from the heart, without sparing!
For the effect of the experience, the unappealing generosity of the orchestral sound, with soloing rare instruments, such as: theorba (a bass variety of the Florentine lute, originating in XVI V. – Yavor Genov), baroque oboes (Konstantin Kozhuharov) and the phage (Sabina Yordanova), which can exceptionally be heard in concert halls. At the same time, the violins (Laura Andriani, Valentina Matiussi, Elena Ganova, Gergana Deliyska, Sofia Stambolieva), the violas (Evgenia Bauer, Ekaterina Fokina), the cellos (Linda Mancheva, Ludovico Minazi), the double bass (Gabriela Tsvetanova) and the harpsichord (Olga Watts).
Absolutely everything in this recital carried the feeling of refinement and incomparable boutique elegance – from the elegant poster, through the rarely performed program in our country, to the “heroes” of the evening – the soprano Sonia Yoncheva and the Festival Baroque Orchestra, led by Zefira Valova. In the same sense, the premier presentation in our country of the stylish album release cannot be missed “Fifteen Mirrors”, with authors Sonia Yoncheva and Alan Duo, of the chic as a vision, but also as its content compact disc „The Courtesan“ – recorded with the orchestra of Opera Carlo Felice – Genoa, with conductor Marco Armiliato and with the special participation of tenor Charles Castronovo.
With her recordings from 2021, Sonia undoubtedly continues to surprise her ardent fans: alongside classic soprano arias from operas by Massenet, Puccini (and especially from “Bohème”), Leoncavallo, Giordano, Mascani and Verdi, there is also the “mezzo-soprano” Delilah – with the famous aria “My heart opens to your voice“ (“My heart opens to your voice”) from “Samson and Delilah” as well as “In the balance” from “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff.
The experience of the entire recital will long reverberate in the minds and hearts of those present. Among them were many musicians, colleagues and classmates of Sonia from the Music School in Plovdiv, current performers of the baroque repertoire, famous journalists and artists. Regardless of whether they were listening to her for the first time or it was another encounter with her great art, those present in the hall did not hide their degrees of delight from the experience. Many waited patiently for her after the concert to share their excitement, personally congratulate her, take a selfie or get an autograph on her book and CD.
In the “Bulgaria” Hall this evening there was also a noticeable presence of foreigners – obviously, addicted admirers of Sonia Yoncheva’s work. Several times emotionally, in Italian, it sounded: “Brava!“, multi-lingual speech floated through the corridors before and after the concert. Several times, with an eloquent gesture, Sonia thanked for the presence of the official Minister of Culture Nayden Todorov, with whom they worked together on several of her projects in Bulgaria. The authoritative Bulgarian musician enthusiastically applauded the soprano’s performances, and at several moments, quite like a musician, he timed individual phrases from the works of George Frideric Handel with his head.
After the exceptional and indisputable success with this program of Sonia, the logical question for the managers and directors of opera theaters in our country is: Should the still unfulfilled debut of our glamorous performer on the native stage – in a full opera title, not be precisely in a work by Handel? – Surely, such a large-scale and perfectly prepared project, with the participation of the prima Sonia Yoncheva and soloists of her class, would attract the attention of both the public and the major television channels specializing in classical music. Let’s wish each other again!
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[1] Quote based on “Fifteen Mirrors” – Sonia Yoncheva with Alan Duo, “SY11 Productions”, Sofia, 2023.
Photos: Archive of Sonia Yoncheva
Dimitar Sotirov
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