Leonor Bonilla (Sevilla, 38 years old) debuted in 2014 with Tito’s clemency, In 2020 he was recognized with the Opera 21 Award for the best revelation singer and, from there, his ascension has been meteoric in the steep international lyric career, thanks mainly to his acclaimed vocal technique that works with an elite athlete discipline. “They are no longer divas,” he says. Seville has returned these days with two big suitcases and a bag that almost leaves forgotten at the end of the interview: “It is the food that my mother -in -law has prepared for me,” he explains with a spontaneity that falls in love. On September 26 he debuted at the Real Alcazar of the Andalusian capital with the role of Zetulbé in The Califfo de Bagdad (1813), an almost unprecedented opera by the Composer also Sevillian Manuel García.
Ask. The first Zetulbé in history was the great diva Isabella Colbran, Muse and wife of Rossini. Does it impose?
Answer. Without a doubt, it is one of the great difficulties. When studying this work, for being so little represented and there is almost no reference record recording, everything is yet to be discovered. More than thinking how Isabella Colbran would sing, I effort me in proposing cadences, variations, which is undoubtedly more interesting.
P. Thinking about Colbran, with their random film life, and seeing how lyrical singers are now trained, with that so strong discipline, do you feel that the profile of a first woman?
R. I have read about them, but I don’t know what the life of Isabella Colbran, or María Malibrán, or Pauline Viardot would be like. I do not know if everything that comes to us is legend or the romantization of what opera was then. They were the great stars of the moment, authentic divas. Now we have stayed a little in the tail, behind everything audiovisual and the great pop stars. We are simply music workers and I am happy with that, really.
P. They have been calling her young promise and a decade. What half -life does a soprano have? Many times women go directly from being too young to being finished. It seems that we are never at the perfect cooking point.
R. I’m glad you ask me why it is a topic that is spoken little. It is conditioned because the woman’s voice develops before the man’s and also gets worse. The voice of the mature man or ages more in the long term. To us, when menopause arrives, hormonal change is so great that it affects the voice. Before, everything that is pregnancies, postpartments, even the menstrual cycle, are handicaps with which we have to deal with. And then, apart from the physiological, there is another conditioning: we are required to be more in shape, more beautiful, younger. And at the time we stop being the possibilities.
P. It comes from an incredible season, but an even better awaits.
R. I have come The Tabernera del PuertoZarzuela has been very important in my career. After Zetulbé’s debut, I have to go to Turin with The rapto of the Serralloan opera that I have already done but that is very important because it is a theater I really wanted to go. And then I have the appointment in the Liceu in Barcelona with Werther The mass cloth …
P. Being young, with vocal skills, dance formation and an overwhelming physicist, have they not tempted with other musical genres?
R. Well, tempting me, but for me having made musical is my frustrated dream. I have a sister who has just finished her second season in Gran Vía in the musical of Mamma mine. I would have made me very happy to be able to sing it.
P. And why is it not thrown?
R. The way of singing, the technique is completely different. And well, I studied and specialized in mine. I have not been able to sing everything.
P. So what sings in the shower?
R. I love flamenco and also listen to a lot of salsa and dance bachata, and I can even listen to Bad Bunny. Everything is possible in this life and is not contradicted.