Yoncheva launching own record label to bolster opera’s audience
Sonya Yoncheva, a soprano at the top of her profession, worries about classical music.
“My son, if I ask him, he always says, ‘I want to be like Ronaldo.’ And later, if I ask my girl, she will say, ‘I want to be Lady Gaga and Beyonce,’ ” the Bulgarian singer explained ahead of the recent premiere of Giordano’s “Fedora” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. “They really don’t associate with the classical music artists. Times are changing.”
In a bid to shape projects and bolster opera’s audience, Yoncheva is launching her own record label.
A Sony Classical artist since 2013, Yoncheva is releasing “The Courtesan” on her own SY11 Productions label, recorded with conductor Marco Armiliato, tenor Charles Castronovo and Italy’s Orchestra dell’Opera Carlo Felice Genova. It will launch
Feb. 9 on Amazon.
In a time of dwindling classical sales and releases, she was able to choose the selections and even the cover photo, matters subject to a collaboration on Sony recordings.
“I never really had the chance to guide my project from first step to the last step,” Yoncheva said. “They were always a very good team with me, but I never felt free.”
In the first close-tonormal season since the pandemic’s onset, Yoncheva sings a revival of Bellini’s “Norma” at the Met starting Feb. 28, then debuts her roles as Maddalena di Coigny in Giordano’s “Andrea Chenier” at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala on May 3 and Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” at the Vienna State Opera on June 23.
“She is one of our most
important artists,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said. “She’s a wonderful actress and a great singer. She is the kind of the artist that the Met needs more than ever these days as we try to make opera more appealing to a broader audience. It’s extremely challenging because the core opera audience is much smaller than it once was.”
David McVicar is directing “Fedora” in his 13th Met production — a future staging of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” is planned — in a fairly traditional mounting. Yoncheva made her role debut at La Scala on Oct. 15 in a modern-dress production directed by Mario Martone, and she worried about being heard.
“The stage director decided to leave the whole stage empty. Me and Roberto Alagna, we were struggling the whole night,” Yoncheva said.
“I finished the production, and I said ‘Oh, my God! What am I going to do at the Met?’ Because the Met is maybe three times bigger than La Scala,” Yoncheva said. “I immediately called David, I
said, ‘Please tell me there are some walls.’ And he said yes. He showed me pictures, and I was reassured.”
Her male lead at the
Met is tenor Piotr Beczala. They have worked together for a decade.
“Our voices our pretty similar,” Beczala said. “I am coming from the lyric corner, and she’s coming from the lyric corner, arriving now for a little more spinto repertory.”
Yoncheva lives outside Geneva with her husband, conductor Domingo Hindoyan, whom she met in school. They are kept busy by 8-year-old son Mateo and 3-year-old daughter Sofia, with the entire family traveling to New York for her extended stay.
Yoncheva’s daughter looks at her career somewhat differently than the opera audience.
“I ask her what daddy does, and she starts to conduct,” Yoncheva said. “And then I ask her what mommy does, and she says, ‘Oh, mommy, she’s Elsa from “Frozen” ’ — because I’m dressed like a princess and I sing.”