Zoylin Ybarra Cuban opera singer conquers The Voice Chile coaches

April 22, 2023

Zoylin Ybarra Rodríguez is the name of the Cuban opera singer who conquered the coaches of The Voice Chile in the blind auditions of the new edition of the talent competition.

The artist, with incredible command of the stage and also of the song, left everyone impressed and made all four chairs turn when she performed "El Brindis de La Traviata" by Giuseppe Verdi.

Chilean Beto Cuevas was surprised when the young woman told him that she usually sings on the street in the Paseo Peatonal de Concepción, one of the busiest points in that city.

Venezuelan José Luis Rodríguez "El Puma" wanted to know if Zoylin sang other genres and the girl gave a masterful performance of a fragment of "Creo en mí" by Natalia Jiménez, to finish convincing the coaches and the audience of her talent.

Francisca Valenzuela and Prince Royce also joined the "fight" to take the young woman to their teams, but finally Beto was the one chosen by the Cuban.

Zoylin has lived in Chile for four years and performs on the streets of Penquista three times a week between her work schedules, as it is the only way she found to publicly showcase her talent.

"I feel super grateful to Chile, because Chile gave me something that maybe you all who live here day to day don't realize, and that is that it gave me back the ability to dream," she said after the audition.

The girl from San Antonio de los Baños began her career in Cuba under the guidance of master and tenor Roberto Chacón, one of the most recognized figures in Cuban opera.

She studied lyric singing at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and at the Instituto Superior del Arte, and on Cuban stages she managed to perform leading roles such as Grizabella in Cats, Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, and Fantine in Les Misérables.

The economic situation that not even artists in Cuba escape led her to seek a better future in another country. In an interview for Nos magazine, Zoylin spoke about how difficult it was to leave her career behind and start from scratch, but life in her native land was unsustainable.

"It's no secret to anyone that the situation in Cuba is super precarious. There came a time where even having cash on hand you couldn't get what you needed. I would come down from the stage and the magic would end: I would take off my heels, the makeup and the sparkly dresses and put them away in a backpack to go find transportation to take me home," she said.

She came to Chile for her partner, who is an actor, but the pandemic situation prevented them from carrying out their projects, until she decided to start singing on the street, at first not to make money but to be able to rehearse and share her art.

Zoylin is now one of the contestants of The Voice Chile and is fulfilling a great dream, only time will tell how far she will go in the competition.