Press

Marvelous reviews for Sonya Yoncheva’s role debut as Lisa in The Queen of Spades at the Metropolitan Opera:

“‘Queen of Spades’ Review: A Fiery Soprano Breaks Through”
“But at the Metropolitan Opera’s season premiere of Elijah Moshinsky’s stenciled historical-dress production on Friday, it was the women who came into focus.

In large part this was because of the fiery performance of the soprano Sonya Yoncheva, who made her role debut as the aristocratic Lisa who breaks off an illustrious engagement to throw in her lot with the wild-eyed Hermann, clinging to him even after he uses deadly force to extract a supernatural gambling secret from her grandmother.

“Young women often fall in love with” bad guys, Yoncheva noted in an earlier interview with The New York Times. On Friday, she drew on a wide range of vocal shadings to evoke flickers of girlish curiosity, fatalism and raw erotic longing that lent uncommon depth and agency to her character.

Her commitment helped make sense of an opera that, with its collage of pastiche, quotations and narrative devices, can feel like a Frankenstein creation. Here, amid the cold glitter of a rococo-obsessed imperial court with people rigidly gliding about under towering wigs, Hermann and Lisa’s search for intense emotions seemed both nihilistic and perfectly plausible.”
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times

“… Elijah Moshinsky’s production deals a winning hand with Sonya Yoncheva’s rich tone and Arsen Soghomonyan’s intensity.”
“… the Bulgarian soprano gave us a fiercely emotional Lisa—one as possessed by her self-destructive passions as Hermann was by his gambling addiction. Her instrument has grown significantly, and she flooded the Met with rich tone in her pair of tortured arias. (…) Clearly, Tchaikovsky brings out the best in Yoncheva, as she had shown in Iolanta at the Met in 2019.”
Christopher Corwin, The Observer

“The Metropolitan Opera has revived The Queen of Spades in the company’s 1995 production, crafted by Elijah Moshinsky. In the role of Lisa is Sonya Yoncheva, the starry soprano from Bulgaria. I attended on Saturday night.

Yoncheva certainly sang like a star. She is a true singing actress, acting as much with her voice as with the rest of her. She does not skimp on technique. I will give you an example of what I mean by that strange statement. Yoncheva does not think that, simply because you are singing opera, you are excused from singing in tune. She sang admirably in tune.

When powerful, she did not sacrifice lyricism; when lyric, she did not sacrifice power. Her Lisa was somehow sensual and innocent at the same time—a feat.”
Jay Nordlinger, The New Criterion

“Sonya Yoncheva unveils her heartbreaking, luminous Lisa in The Queen of Spades at the Met”
“Yoncheva brought an enticing mix of voluptuous sound, tempered with steel, to Lisa. Without ever straining the essentially lyrical nature of her voice, Yoncheva expressed Lisa’s torrents of emotion in arcing waves of sound that crested easily over the orchestra. Her characterization was equally refined and touching. Yoncheva is a superb Lisa in all ways, and undoubtedly the role will be her next calling card in opera houses worldwide.”
Rick Perdian, Seen And Heard International

“The scene with Lisa was riveting in how Soghomonyan matched Sonya Yoncheva, the two titanic voices erupting into the space with a potency I rarely heard all season.
(…)
And there she was for this production, reminding the Met audience why she remains one of opera’s most magnetic presences. Yoncheva, who has had success as a multi-faceted entrepreneur of books, magazines, and concert series (among other things), has a similarly tremendous sense of freedom and dominance on stage. She gives off the aura of being able to do anything she wants artistically in both her wide-ranging repertory and her vocal interpretations.
Her Lisa was vibrant from the get-go, the soprano regal as she strode in behind her aunt and yet possessing a delicate and timid manner. This bashfulness gave way to a more playful nature during the ensuing scene with Maria Barakova’s Pauline, her soprano melding beautifully with her mezzo counterpart. Then comes Lisa’s first big moment, a distressed meditation on this mystery man that has thrown her seemingly structured life out of orbit. Suddenly she’s feeling things she didn’t know she had a right to feel and its scares her. And here Yoncheva shifted from one side of the stage, fear on her face, her voice full of yearning. I don’t recall Yoncheva singing with this much elegance and grace in any other performance I have previously seen. She’s always had the vocal power and beauty, but here the legato lines did “Zashem zhe eti slyozy” melted into one another, the soprano diminuendoing from potent fortes to piani effortlessly. The forte G flat blossomed gloriously into the hall and the climactic B flat was similarly sublime in its potency. As Hermann pursues her around the room, she ran about, her frenzied energy a perfect foil to his statuesque embodiment. But when she let go and jumped into his arms, the passion was palpable.
Lisa doesn’t get to do much during the first scene of Act two, but you could see her sense of conflict as Yeletsky declared his love to her. My eyes were glued to her for a great part of this passage, watching as she navigated the inner turmoil of a character feeling bad for her betrothed and wondering if she was making the right decision. The subtle flirtation with Hermann during the play also added to the depth of the scene, reminding us that the Mozartian opera unfolding “on stage” is the happy reflection of the ultimately tragic story of “The Queen of Spades.”
Then came Act three, where Yoncheva was titanic. This scene tests the soprano’s range and its where most interpreters of Lisa fall short. Not only does she have to peak at a high B natural, but she has to descend from those highs to chest voice quickly. A lot of interpreters simply don’t have the lows to match the highs, but Yoncheva’s low notes might have been more impressive than her highs in some instances. It added a dark intensity to her singing. But in all this, the Andante molto cantabile of “Utzh polnoch blizitsya” was delivered with a buttery legato and sublime piano sound. That contrasted beautifully with the “cabaletta” section of the scene, the soprano trumpeting her voice with aplomb, the highs resonant and beautiful in their execution.
This performance was a reminder of Yoncheva’s greatest qualities as an artist – her confident stage presence and her elegant and intelligent vocal artistry. Like Soghomonyan, from the beginning you felt, as an audience member, that you were in the hands of a master. And once you feel that level of comfort, you simply give yourself over to the performance and the surprises it will give you.”
David Salazar, Operawire

“Soprano Sonya Yoncheva, making her role debut as Lisa, delivered a performance that was both vocally luminous and emotionally resonant. Her portrayal captured Lisa’s vulnerability and inner turmoil, with a voice that soared effortlessly over the orchestra. Yoncheva’s nuanced interpretation and expressive phrasing brought depth to the character, marking her the principle attraction in the production.”
Peter Danish, Broadway World

“… she sounded wonderful — a dark, voluminous soprano with an overlay of gleaming silver… . Her voice now sounds like a genuine lirico-spinto, not a pushed lyric soprano manufacturing qualities she was not born with. Liza’s final aria by the Winter Canal in Act III “Akh! istomilas ya goryem” (I am worn out by grief) was a highlight of the evening. This was a role debut for the Bulgarian diva and musically and stylistically she was on top of it.”
Eli Jacobson, Parterre Box

“Yoncheva’s sound is darker than one imagines for Lisa, who is not just young but naïve and pliable, but in the context of the evening that actually helped the character hold her own against Hermann. Her lighter moments in the second scene in Act I, and her aria in Act III as she waits for Hermann were quite fine, delicate, musical, and passionate.”
George Grella, New York Classical Review

[Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera]