Lucca – a city of music again 

26 July 2020

As the restrictions to social life due to Corona virus slowly began to ease, one the most pleasurable to emerge first was a carefully socially distanced concert held in Piazza San Martino at the end of July.  

Many of the usual sponsors of musical productions in Lucca were involved in this event such as Teatro del Giglio and Banca del Monte in the immediate vicinity. Hundreds of seats were arranged since every other seat was left empty in accordance with social distancing rules but on the evening the feeling of ‘a full audience’ was experienced.

Sonya Yoncheva (b. 1981)

The operatic star of the evening was the Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva born on Christmas Day 1981 in Plovdiv, the second largest city but considered the cultural capital of Bulgaria.  

Having won several operatic competitions, her international was boosted when she debuted at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 2013 as Glida in Verdi’s Rigoletto. In 2016, Yoncheva made her debut at London’s Royal Opera House as Norma in Bellini’s opera of the same name a role that is a good example of the bel canto style of singing. Finally, in 2017 she made her debut at Milan’s La Scala Opera House as Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème.

Yoncheva’s 2019/20 season of performances was, like all opera stars, completely disrupted by the Corona virus and her open-air performance was most likely her first performance during the summer of 2020 and a great event for Lucca. Supporting Yoncheva was the local tenor Marco Ciaponi from Barga and the Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova.

To my delight, the music programme celebrated Lucca’s most famous composer Giacomo Puccini.

Meeting friends at bar Undici Undici in the piazza before and after the performance on a warm evening in Lucca was a perfect remedy to the restrictions of the previous few months!