“We are delighted by this serial New Year’s spectacle of the Sofia Opera. This was one wonderfully selected and combined programme, in which this time in succession rose the stars of our opera and ballet art! My daughter arrived from Washington for one week in Sofia specially to enjoy this festive concert, which as always was welcomed enthusiastically by the audience and this real triumph of the spirit is an unforgettable present for the connoisseurs of opera and ballet! Please, transfer our thanks to Maestro Plamen Kartaloff for making us again witnesses of a unique aesthetic experience with the wonderfully selected and staged with great imagination and inspiration festive programme!”

Elena and Plamena Kirovi

“A magnificent New Year’s spectacle! What we saw and heard created a terrific mood for us! Today we enjoyed a fairy extravaganza of beauty and colours on the stage, of our favourite music and the performances of all these eminent artists, whose talent conquered the audience! There is no satiety for such a concert! I would watch it not only once, because it fills the soul and charges me with energy for weeks ahead!”

Zdravka Andreeva, musicologist

“A unique New Year’s concert! An incredible experience! We witnessed very original director’s, staging and artistic solutions! The performers did their best for us to be in transports to the very end and witness this Christmas and New Year’s feast! The selection of the programme and the choice of the participating artists showed that the management of the Sofia Opera did everything possible for this incredible concert to happen and the audience, this time too, to be enchanted by the festive impact of the talents, who appeared before us! Praise be to you all, be healthy and let you please us with your great art always the same way!”

Ivan and Bozhidara Tsekovi

“Me and my family are expecting and visiting every year with great pleasure the New Year’s concerts of the Opera and this is why we are especially happy that we are present at this unique New Year’s performance! We wish the whole team of the Sofia Opera and Ballet to be healthy and to please us always the same way with your great artistic achievements! Tonight, we were amazed by the perfect organization of this concert, by the magnificent presentation of the wonderful singers and by the brilliant talent of the artists from the ballet! Thank you for the joy and inspiration, which you gave us!”

Milena Sredkova, Elena and Krasimir Andreevi

“An incredible spectacle! This is a unique experience! We always come with great expectation to the New Year’s concerts of the Sofia Opera! And we are glad that by today’s pandemic situation you made also the impossible to please the audience with the best, of which your theatre disposes! We appreciate to the highest the fact that by the imposed till now limitations you made so many spectacles, you made unbelievable efforts and did your best to pay respect to your audience with productions, which are real masterpieces of operatic and ballet art! Here it is, today too, we experienced this feast for the senses, feast for the soul! In order there to be no cancelled performance, this requires an enormous devotion and very good organization, for which we express our huge gratitude!”

Velizar Velkov, Yovka Georgieva and Veselin Komitov

“We are happy with my friends from Spain and Argentina that tonight we had the chance to be present at this magnificent New Year’s concert, in which we could enjoy Spanish motives too in the music and ballet performances! All opera and ballet artists were wonderful, they gave much of themselves and infected us with the big inspiration, which was springing from their perfect presentation! Such a great feast of the opera and ballet art won’t be forgotten and we are glad that we had the chance to be among you today! Thank you for everything, which you did for this great New Year’s feast to happen!”

Maria from Madrid and Gonzalo from Buenos Aires

“Tonight, I arrived here from Varna to enjoy this marvellous New Year’s concert! It is a wonderful ending for the old year and it inspires us new hope that the New Year will be healthier and more successful for all of us and for your wonderful artistic team! Be productive as always and we shall expect with big desire your wonderful new productions. We believe that this time too our dreams will come true!”

Penka Zlateva and Vanya

“A wonderful spectacle! I am moved to the utmost by the performance of these delightful artists! This is a splendid New Year’s concert and it gives a reason to think whether somewhere else in the world someone could stage and perform this unique festive programme! I am so moved and happy, that I cannot express in words my enthusiasm with this festive staging! I couldn’t but draw to tears by the performances of Gabriela Georgieva, who sang “Casta Diva”, and of Marta Petkova, personifying the roles of Carmen and Marie from the “Nutcracker”! This time too, the Sofia Opera presented us with the magic of its orchestra and the talent of these unique artists! Thank you!”

Acad. Margarita Kamenova, President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Arts

“Every year you offer us in the New Year’s concerts something different, something which attracts us even more to your temple of operatic and ballet art! What we saw and heard tonight gave us the feeling of a feast, of hope and belief in the eternity of music, of the opera and ballet! Be healthy and inspired to give the audience the next masterpieces and attract more and more young people and children to be enlightened with the beauty and joy, which music emanates!”

Lili Vasileva

“For a fourth time we visit the New Year’s concerts of the Sofia Opera and today again we enjoy this splendid and versatile festive spectacle! Most of the performances deserved to be called back to encore and we were enthusiastically applauding to reward the performers for their incredible talent and for their impulse, with which they sounded on the stage! We pay our special compliments to Maestro Plamen Kartaloff for the directing and the organization of this New Year’s production, to the orchestra and to all participants, who bestowed today its audience with the beauty of their talent and the devotion to the art of music!”

Dr Ivan Maystorov and Tsveta Maystorova

“Today we experienced one beautiful feast! It’s wonderful that with it we see off this year and with it we welcome the New year with good mood and joy, which we received from this festive concert! Tonight, the whole team of the Sofia Opera gave everything from themselves at that with a lot of love, to evoke such an enthusiasm and inspiration among the thankful audience! Be healthy and always so capable to give us joy and trust in the potential of our people!”

Veselin

“Today too, we were witnesses of an unforgettable New Year’s concert, in which the Sofia Opera combined perfectly the opera and ballet performances with the presentation of our favourite musical “My Father the Painter”! So far, we tried not to miss the New Year’s spectacles, but here it is, after such a unique programme, our desire in the future to be in this hall before the New year is much bigger!”

Radoslava

“We are very happy that this year too we managed to see the New Year’s concert of the Sofia Opera! This was a real feast of beauty – beautiful stage with changing sets and lighting, excellently combined programme with vocal and ballet performances, wonderful orchestra, brilliant performances of all artists – all that amazed us and passed over all our expectations! The delightful is that among the audience there were so many children, who appreciated with admiration the presentation of their coevals, participating in the musical “My Father the Painter”! Today we have to evaluate very highly what already by tradition the Sofia Opera makes for preparation and attraction in the opera halls of its young and future audience!”

Polina Krumova

“From what we saw this year in the repertoire of the Sofia Opera and what we enjoyed tonight during the New Year’s concert showed us with what wide steps our first opera theatre is walking to the tops of the world art of music! I have the feeling that this way and with this development rate our opera would go beyond the Scala of Milan! This should not at all sound hard, in view of the done so far! When we dispose of such artists, of such an orchestra and director’s swing in every production, the Sofia Opera turns out to be one of the greatest Bulgarian achievements in the field of culture! Let’s be proud of this!”

Stiliyana Dimitrova

“We are delighted this year too with the New Year’s feast, which offered us the Sofia Opera! The programme of this New Year’s concert was amazing, but during the interval the audience was paid respect generously with the wonderful champagne, and on leaving we all were given a fine present, which is something more than a gesture by our favourite theatre to every happy visitor tonight! This is why we are endlessly thankful to the whole team of the Sofia Opera and Ballet for the hospitality, the attention and the generously shared with us unique art of the singers, the artists from the ballet and the orchestra! We were living abroad for a long time and this is why we appreciate highly the art of our musicians and artists, what we couldn’t see elsewhere in the world! We are delighted by the large-scale original ideas of Maestro Plamen Kartaloff, who took the Sofia Opera and Ballet to these heights! We believe and expect the new joyful meetings with your art in the New Year 2022!”

Sevda and Nikolay Strumovi