Съкровени гласове 2

Sonya Yoncheva gathers a constellation of the world's greatest opera stars for the second season of "Inmost Voices"

At the invitation of our opera diva and SY11 Events, Vittorio Grigolo, Piotr Beczala, Rolando Villazon, Joyce DiDonato will come to Bulgaria. Sonya Yoncheva herself will take part of the second season as well

Tickets are now on sale for the long-awaited concerts of the second season of "Inmost Voices", featuring some of the most established and popular international names in opera, such as Vittorio Grigolo, Sonya Yoncheva, Piotr Beczala, Rolando Villazon and Joyce DiDonato.

After the very successful first season of the "Inmost Voices" series, which will end on 31 May in the "Bulgaria" hall with the participation of the popular French mezzo-soprano Clementine Margaine, it was only logical to launch a second season, which began on 25 October with a recital by the favourite of Italian audiences, Vittorio Grigolo, and will end on 31 May next year with a performance by the American superstar among opera divas, Joyce DiDonato.

"With the first season of "Inmost Voices", we presented younger and very distinctive opera artists with their own signature in the classical art. In the second edition of the cycle, we turn the spotlight on some of the most memorable and talented world opera singers from the front lines of this art, have accumulated quite a rich career and biography behind them. We want to show them to the Bulgarian public in their intimate musical essence and their immense vocal possibilities", says Sonya Yoncheva, who organizes the two seasons of "Inmost Voices" together with her production company SY11 Events.

All five concerts of the second season of "Inmost Voices" will be held in the "Bulgaria" hall starting at 19:30, and tickets for them are already available on the Eventim website.

The beginning of the new season will be given on October 25 with the recital "Italian Serenade" by the leading tenor from the Apennines, Vittorio Grigolo. As a child, he sang as a soloist in the choir of the Sistine Chapel, and later made his debut as the Shepherd in "Tosca" with Luciano Pavarotti. Grigolo is among the youngest male performers, having debuted at the age of 23 at the Milan Scala with a concert conducted by maestro Riccardo Muti. He conquered the stages of the most prestigious theaters in Verona, Munich, Berlin, Barcelona, New York, Paris, London, Vienna. He performed leading roles in the Italian and French operatic repertoire with productions such as "Carmen", "Don Carlos", "Faust", "Il Trovatore", "La Bohème", "La Traviata", "The Tales of Hoffmann", "Lucia di Lammermoor", "Manon", "Rigoletto", "Romeo and Juliet", "Tosca". Among his most recent incarnations this season are Canio in "Pagliacci" at the Hamburg State Opera and Manrico in "Il Trovatore" at the Munich State Opera.

"His voice draws you in because it has passion and flexibility", wrote the New York Times about Grigolo's talent.

In the summer of 2023, Vittorio performed the role of Cavaradossi in "Tosca" at the 100th Opera Festival in the Arena di Verona, where he partnered Sonya Yoncheva. Vittorio was a successful recording artist with a platinum debut album and later received a Grammy nomination for recording of the Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.

During his first concert in Bulgaria, Grigolo will perform arias by Bellini, Rossini, Puccini, Donizetti, Verdi, Mascani, accompanied by the Georgian pianist Mzia Bachtouridze, who has performed many times at La Scala and Carnegie Hall.

Shortly before the Christmas holidays, on December 3, we will enjoy the recital of the Bulgarian diva Sonya Yoncheva, entitled "Ad una Stella", which will be presented for the first time in Bulgaria after dozens of tours of all over the world, precisely with this concert program. The soprano will perform compositions by Verdi, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Martucci and others alongside the Scottish pianist Malcolm Martineau, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2016 for his dedication and services to music art worldwide.

The third concert in a row from Season 2 of "Inmost Voices" was given to the world-famous Polish tenor Piotr Beczala. He is among the most sought-after opera performers of our time and is a regular guest in leading opera houses around the world. Born in the town of Czechowice-Dziedzice, the artist is recognized not only for the beauty of his voice, but also for his passionate dedication to every image he recreates. Among his most distinguished roles are those in the operas "Carmen", "Rigoletto", "Eugene Onegin", "La Traviata", "Tosca", "Faust", "Lohengrin", "Aida", "Der Rosenkavalier", "Rusalka", "Turandot", "Il Trovatore", "Un Ballo in Maschera", "La Bohème". He tours most regularly at the Metropopitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, the Liceu Theater in Barcelona. Beczala was Sonya Yoncheva's stage partner in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Fedora, which caused a sensation among critics and audiences last season.

In addition to her operatic work, Beczala performs much of the classical vocal canon with the world's most distinguished orchestras and maestros, giving various recitals throughout Europe: in Vienna, Stockholm, Prague, Budapest, Zurich, Dresden. He is the winner of a number of prestigious awards, including the "ECHO Klassik Award" (2014), "International Opera Award" (2018), "Opus Klassik" (2021) - all three prices were awarded to him in the "Best Performer" category. In 2019, he was awarded the honorary title "Kammersänger" of the Vienna State Opera.

Piotr Beczala will present the "Romance" concert on March 19, 2025 during his first Bulgarian recital in together with the French pianist Sarah Tysman, who has been a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2016 and has held key positions in prestigious opera festivals and theaters such as the Salzburg and Vienna State Operas. The two will present works by Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Massenet, Rachmaninoff, Moniuszko and others.

The emblematic Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon is well known to his native audience, and his guest appearance in Sofia is the second in a row. We are waiting for him in the "Bulgaria" hall on April 2, 2025 with the "Belcanto" recital, where we will again hear the pianist Sarah Tysman as an accompanist of the famous artist, who will perform arias by Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, as well as familiar melodies of famous contemporary Mexican composers.

Recognized as one of the most beloved stars in the world of music, Rolando Villazon has had a multi-faceted career spanning opera, directing, writing, radio and television hosting, and film appearances. Born in Mexico City, Villazon gained international fame after winning second prize in the 1999 Operalia competition organized by Plácido Domingo. Since then, Villazon has been a welcome guest on the world's most prestigious stages and has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim and Antonio Pappano. Among his most frequent appearances are his roles in the operas "Manon", "Macbeth", "Carmen", "La Bohème", "The Tales of Hoffmann", "La Traviata", "Don Giovanni", "L'elisir d'amore", "La sonnambula", "The Barber of Seville".

As an exclusive artist for Deutsche Grammophon, he has released over 20 albums (selling over 2 million copies) and received numerous international awards. Honored with the title of Chévalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Villazon is also an ambassador for the charity RED NOSES Clowndoctors International (working with sick children) and a member of the Collège de Pataphysique de Paris. He is an acclaimed author with several bestsellers. Currently Artistic Director of the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Villazon continues to captivate audiences around the world. Highlights of the 2023-24 season include performances at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival in Germany, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Berlin Staatsoper. He will close the season at the Vienna State Opera this summer with a baroque gala, partnering Cecilia Bartoli.

The closing concert of "Inmost Voices" 2, entitled "The Queen", will take place on May 31 next year in the company of the phenomenal Joyce DiDonato and the American pianist and winner of "Grammy" Craig Terry.

"I was very young, still a student, when Joyce came to sing Mozart's "The Clemency of Titus" at the Geneva Opera. I was hiding in the back, behind the scenes, with some music sheets to keep track of all the coloraturas, whether she would sing them well, and after that, when I get home, try to perform them like her", says Sonya Yoncheva.

The American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is the winner of several Grammy awards, and the influential magazine "The New Yorker" defines her as "one of the most potent artists of her generation".

Her impeccable singing technique and professional ethics create an image of her as a brilliant artist, a respected producer and an absolute defender of art in its various forms. Critics hailed her as "the epitome of musical perfection". She is also a human rights activist.

Joyce's career spanned four decades, during which she recorded a number of albums and participated in productions and projects at leading opera houses and music halls around the world. Among her most memorable performances are those in "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni", "Maria Stuarda", "Romeo and Juliet", "Agrippina", "The Barber of Seville", "Idomenео", "Norma", "Semeramide", "Theodora" and many others. Over the years he often worked with conductors of the rank of Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti.

The Kansas-born singer begins her ambitious 2023-24 creative cycle by opening the Metropolitan Opera season performing her signature role as Sister Helen in American composer Jake Heggie's new production of "Dead Man Walking", then reincarnating the image of Virginia Woolf in "The Hours" by the US composer Kevin Puts. Joyce continues her successful EDEN and SONGPLAY tours in Asia, South America and Europe. DiDonato is a "Warner Classics/Erato" label exclusive artist.

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"Inmost Voices" Project

"Music is a universal language, pulsating in the rhythm of life itself, and the human voice is its most intimate and immediate expression. In addition to being an artist working with the voice as a musical instrument, I am also a sincere admirer of the human voice, because I believe that it is a mirror of our soul", says Sonya Yoncheva.

The opera prima and her team created the cycle "Inmost Voices" as an opportunity for the Bulgarian audience to feel the specific influence of the recital - a relatively rarely staged form that creates a special closeness between the artist and his audience. "Inmost Voices" unites established and young talents who have left a deep impression on Sonya Yoncheva during their mutual meetings or collaborations. The programs they present intrigue with the variety of composers and forms – both operatic arias and songs from different eras and styles.

"Inmost Voices" is a very important and truly touching project of SY11. I decided to invite diverse and bright artists from the global scene. I wanted the Bulgarian audience to have the privilege of meeting them in a more intimate and chamber version, so that the audience in the hall could feel the energy and musical messages even more strongly and leave truly enriched", the Bulgarian soprano also reveals.

For SY11

Sonya Yoncheva founded her production company SY11 in 2020. The mission of the singer and her team is to realize diverse projects and events in the field of art and present them in a new way, attracting diverse audiences such as preferences and ages. The first concerts held with SY11 are "Homecoming" in the Plovdiv Ancient Theater in the summer of 2020, and a year later - the large-scale opera gala, which gathered nearly 6,500 people in front of the Alexander Nevsky temple-monument - with the participation of Sonya Yoncheva, Plácido Domingo and under the baton of maestro Nayden Todorov and the accompaniment of the Sofia Philharmonic.

The next concerts produced by SY11 were connected with Sonya Yoncheva's album "Rebirth", released in 2021, and the presentation of a baroque program in various countries, as well as in Bulgaria - precisely with the compositions from this album. In April 2023, Sonya Yoncheva's "Handel" concert followed, accompanied by concertmaster Zefira Valova and the "Art of the Baroque" Festival Orchestra. In the same year, the album "The Courtesan" by Sonya Yoncheva appeared, again produced by the SY11 label, featuring some of the most famous soprano parts. Sonya Yoncheva's first book, entitled "Fifteen Mirrors", presents 15 opera heroines accompanying her in the first 15 years of her glamorous global career. The book was published by SY11 in 2023 and has already been translated into several languages due to the continued interest of its fans around the world.

The other very important project of SY11 is the "Inmost Voices" season (2023/2024), which brought together in its first edition various young leading international opera artists. The second season of "Inmost Voices" includes concerts by some of the most established names in world opera. We look forward to their appearances in Bulgaria in the 2024/2025 season.

Official Page: https://sy11events.com/