Press

Reviews are out for Sonya Yoncheva’s Iolanta at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden! Lauded by the press for her “lyrical fullness and ecstatic sweetness” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), her “luminous soprano” (BNN) and “radiant”, “poetic musicality” (La Croix), Sonya sang the role with the Berliner Philharmoniker on Easter Sunday in a one-off concert performances within the Baden-Baden Easter Festival.

“Of course, Yoncheva commands the performance with her soprano’s lyrical fullness and ecstatic sweetness.”
Jan Brachmann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“Luminous soprano: In the role of Iolanta, who believes that eyes are only made for crying, Sonya Yoncheva managed to combine fervor and innocence with gentle drama and to trace the character’s step from childhood to adulthood.
Already in the first arioso she displayed the rich depth and middle range of her sonorous soprano, which swelled to sonorous luminosity in the central duet and in the finale and triumphed over the ensemble and the large choir of the Slovak Philharmonic.”
Nikolaus Schmidt, Badische Neueste Nachrichten

“Soprano Sonya Yoncheva interpreted the tender and quivering heroine in the spring of her life. (…) she showed a radiant and poetic musicality.”
Emanuelle Giuliani, La Croix

“Sonya Yoncheva triumphs in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival”
“…magnificent Iolanta… with no less than Sonya Yoncheva in the title role!
And the Bulgarian soprano did not disappoint her admirers, who came in droves to a jam-packed Festspielhaus. As shimmering as always, the voice possesses that immediate seduction provoked by a magnetic timbre, and the artist’s commitment has no difficulty in convincing. Her Iolanta is touching, spontaneous, and without affectation or excessive sentimentality; she has the ardor of youth, the one to whom all hopes are allowed. The young blind woman to whom Vaudémont’s love ends up restoring her sight undoubtedly finds in Sonya Yoncheva her best defender alongside Anna Netrebko!”
Emmanuel Andrieu, Opera Online

“Once again a first-class cast has been gathered. Sonya Yoncheva finds again the role of Iolanta which she has already sung in Paris or New York… . She is still just as decisive here thanks to the intensity of her interpretation, her power, the emotion that she releases by her captivating timbre and her penetrating or floating high notes that pierce the soul.”
Michel Tomé, Res Musica