Sonya Yoncheva achieved rapid visibility during the mid-2010s through engagements at leading opera companies. Although her formative work centered on Baroque repertoire, her trajectory soon broadened to encompass core nineteenth-century operas.
She entered the world on December 25, 1981, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second city. Intensive training began at age six and continued at the National School for Music and Dance, where she pursued both piano and voice. As a teenager she hosted a television music program; Yoncheva has noted that the role helped her shed shyness and manage stage fright.
Several Bulgarian singing contests brought her victories, one of them a joint appearance with her brother, a rock singer. Western attention followed her enrollment at the Geneva Conservatory under Danielle Borst. She received a Master’s degree there in 2009, yet her stage career had already commenced: conductor William Christie admitted her to the Jardin des Voix program in 2007. With Christie she performed in touring productions of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Rameau’s Les Indes galantes. She also collaborated with Emmanuelle Haïm on Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and other operas, one of which was released on DVD.
A 2013 contract with Sony Classical positioned her as a frequent emergency replacement at major houses. That year she substituted at the Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s Rigoletto, earning praise from New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini. Her scheduled Met debut as Mimi in La bohème took place the following year, only five weeks after the birth of her son Mateo to Yoncheva and conductor Domingo Hindoyan. Her first album, Paris, Mon Amour, appeared in 2014. Replacing Anna Netrebko in a touring production of Gounod’s Faust extended her reach across Europe and led to the 2015 ECHO Klassik Award as Best Newcomer.
In 2016 she sang the title role in Bellini’s Norma at the Royal Opera House, London, and issued a recital of Handel and Purcell arias that underscored her Baroque strengths. Her La Scala debut followed in 2017 as Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème. Additional successes at leading theaters included three nationally broadcast Metropolitan Opera performances during the 2017–2018 season.
During the 2020–2021 coronavirus pandemic she performed the soprano solo in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, at Geneva’s Victoria Hall and took part in a Rolex-sponsored concert at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin that raised funds for musicians affected by cancellations. Sony Classical released The Verdi Album in 2018 and, in 2021, Rebirth, a program of early music that also featured an ABBA song.
