The Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre is preparing an unusual concert for the audience: the soloist of the opera company Daria Frolova will perform songs of a star of a fantastic vocal gift - the “Inca princess” Yma Sumac.

The concert will be held in an art cafe format on May 25; its programme includes the most striking works of the repertoire of the Peruvian diva: traditional Spanish folklore, Latin American songs, and operatic masterpieces.

Goddess of the Andes. Peruvian diva. Singing goddess. Princess of the Incas - the people she traced her ancestry from. The mass media awarded such enthusiastic titles to Yma Sumac, the singer with a unique range of five octaves.

Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo (that is Yma's real name) spent her childhood in the mountain village of Ichocán in northern Peru, where her parents had a ranch. The girl did not receive a musical education and did not know music; she herself said that she learned to sing by imitating bird voices. Indeed, her vocals resembled the singing of birds of paradise. She had the extraordinary gift of almost instantly moving from the lowest to the highest tones and making “completely inhuman sounds.” “Indian roots gave her singing an echo of the mystical traditions of South America, and European classical voice-training allowed her to masterfully develop extraordinary vocal abilities,” music critics wrote about Yma Sumac.

In the mid-twentieth century, Yma enjoyed immense popularity throughout the world. She was also known and loved in the Soviet Union. Nowadays, her name is undeservedly forgotten; Daria Frolova intends to right the wrong along with the production team of the project: music director, conductor, and arranger Eugeniy Sablin, stage director Oksana Lukyanets, costume designer Maria Vysotskaya, orchestrator Andrey Lukyanets, choreographers Marianna Kaydani and Anastasia Osokina.