Happy Baba Marta, friends, and especially congratulations to the artists of the Sofia Opera! They put on a fantastic spectacle last night and were visibly euphoric, singing and playing "La bohème" with Sonya Yoncheva – her first starring role at the Metropolitan Opera, the role that made her a star.

The audience was ecstatic, the ground floor was full of excited people, on one of the front rows I saw Ivan Kostov. But the most enthusiastic was an engineer sitting next to me, a pensioner who had been presented tickets for his birthday. Before the beginning he told me that he was the biggest admirer of Sonya Yoncheva, where he had seen her, where in the world he had gone to the opera – La Scala, Covent Garden..., details of Puccini's life, great joy...

Last night the Sofia Opera was like the Metropolitan Opera, bravo!