Sonya Yoncheva

Sonya Yoncheva (Bulgarian: Соня Йончева; born 25 December 1981) is a Bulgarian operatic soprano.

Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Yoncheva did not have a conventional childhood. Since the age of 6, she was already "working", according to her own words from an interview for Metropolis. She studied piano and voice at the National School for Music and Dance in Plovdiv. During her teenage years, she hosted a Bulgarian television show about music. She won several music competitions in Bulgaria in 2000 and 2001, including a joint win with her brother as "Singers of the Year 2000" in the "Hit-1" competition organised and produced by Bulgarian National Television.

In 2009, she obtained her master's degree in classical singing from the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, where her teachers included the opera singer Danielle Borst.

Yoncheva was an invited participant in William Christie's "Jardin des Voix" academy for young singers in 2007. She has continued work in the baroque repertoire with Christie, and also with Le Concert d'Astrée and Emmanuelle Haïm. Yoncheva was the female first-place winner of the 2010 Operalia competition. Her debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in November 2013 when she stepped in as Gilda in Rigoletto, in advance of her previously scheduled official debut. In 2014 at the Met, she sang her stage role debut as Mimì (La bohème) in November and shared the role of Violetta (La traviata) in December. In 2015 she appeared as Desdemona in the season opening production of Otello the Metropolitan Opera and in September 2016 she made her debut as Norma at the Royal Opera House, where she sang Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann in October of the same year. In June 2017 she made her debut at the Teatro alla Scala as Mimì in La bohème. She made her role debut in the title role of Puccini's Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera for their 2017/18 season to great critical acclaim. Yoncheva set a record as first singer to appear in leading roles in three movie-theater broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera in one season (Tosca, Mimi in La bohème and Luisa Miller in the 2017/18 season). Other role debuts in the 2017/18 season include Verdi's Luisa Miller at the Metropolitan Opera and Élisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Don Carlos at the Paris Opera. For her role debut as Imogene in Vincenzo Bellini's Il pirata at the Teatro alla Scala in June 2018, the first production of the piece after a legendary 1958 staging with Maria Callas as Imogene the press proclaimed that her performance would "surely see Yoncheva enter La Scala's hall of fame alongside Callas". In summer 2018 Yoncheva sang the role of Poppea in Claudio Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Salzburg Festival.