The Verdi Album

For her third solo album for Sony Classical, the Operalia-winning soprano, Yoncheva turns her attention to the work of a composer for whom many feel she has always had a special affinity: Giuseppe Verdi. The music of Verdi forms the lodestone of most dramatic-lyric sopranos, and Yoncheva includes arias from some of the composer’s rarely-performed operas in addition to some of the most beloved ones. From the early operas, she sings arias from Nabucco (1842), Attila (1846), Luisa Miller (1849) and Stiffelio (1850). The latter aria is a prayer of forgiveness from a woman, the wife of a pastor, who has been unfaithful. ‘The emotional range of this aria is amazing, and musically it uses the whole voice from high to low- but amazingly it all happens in about two minutes.’