Il pirata at La Scala: "A performance that will surely see Yoncheva enter La Scala's hall of fame alongside Callas"

Sonya Yoncheva as Imogene in Il pirata at the Teatro alla Scala. Photo credit: Marco Brescia & Rudy Amisano.

Rave reviews for Sonya Yoncheva's Imogene in "Il pirata" at the Teatro alla Scala. Il Giorno describes her as "an Imogene worthy of the Bellini hall of fame". For La Stampa, Sonya's first outing as Imogene was a performance of a "true primadonna" and Bachtrack headlines "Sonya Yoncheva triumphs in Il pirata at La Scala" and states that it was "Yoncheva's triumph that defined the occasion. (...) In a striking funeral scene, Imogene emerges from a chain curtain holding a starkly-lit black drape which she slowly pulls over Ernesto's coffin during her showpiece aria. It was the highlight in a performance that will surely see Yoncheva enter La Scala's hall of fame alongside Callas." Il Manifesto praises her voice as "full bodied in the low register, biting in the high register, agile and voluminous at the same time" and proclaims that it "seems to have a similar structure (in the similarity one should never stop enhancing the differences) to La Divina's".