Plácido Domingo Surrounded By Yoncheva, Peretyatko, Yende At MET

Tenor Plácido Domingo backstage at the Metropolitan Opera following a performance of Verdi's Otello, a role he has sung over 225 times, with sopranos (left to right) Sonya Yoncheva, Olga Peretyatko and Pretty Yende.

Behind The Scenes Of The Metropolitan Opera Costume Department

Joyce DiDonato Headlines Bastille Day Concert At Eiffel Tower

Bryn Terfel and Joyce DiDonato during a rehearsal in Paris

"She's no stranger to singing at major outdoor gatherings broadcast to a television audience of millions around the world, as she did last year when she performed the national anthem at the final game of the Major League Baseball World Series. Tonight Joyce DiDonato is an American in Paris, singing at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for Paris' annual Bastille Day classical gala, the Grand Concert de Musique Classique. Performing alongside the likes of Bryn Terfel (the duet 'La ci darem la mano' from Mozart's Don Giovanni), Lang Lang and Gautier Capuçon. The 2014 extravaganza was headed by the beloved homegrown soprano Natalie Dessay, but this year's vocal pyrotechnics come from the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano who received a major award from French classical music magazine Diapason d'Or for

Purchase Joyce DiDonato's new album here.

her last album of rare Italian arias, Stella di Napoli. There will certainly be an American flavour to proceedings, with Bernstein and Gershwin on the programme. Erato is proud of its strong French routes and early championing of French music and artists - but also of its international outlook today. Joyce singing for the people of Paris and viewers around the world in front of the Eiffel Tower could sum up perfectly Erato and Warner Classics' vision today. The concert will finish, as it does every year, with a spectacular fireworks display. Vive la France, vive la musique!" [Source] See the program and star-studded roster after the jump.

Sonya Yoncheva Makes Vogue Magazine Spread For Debut

A Star is Born: Soprano Sonya Yoncheva Arrives

"As Yoncheva made her debut in major operas in Europe, word of her singular range and tone made its way to Gelb. 'We have a very sophisticated scouting system,' he later explained by phone. 'Sometimes I hear reports about young singers that make it clear we should bring them in. European opera houses are typically smaller than the Met. Singers who can make an impression in a smaller European house sometimes do not have the same success on stage at the Met. The singer has to be even more intensely charismatic on stage.' Following her turn as Gilda, Gelb said, Yoncheva has been on a 'meteoric rise to operatic stardom.' Tonight, Yoncheva will begin the first of four performances in La Traviata, one day after releasing her first album, the result of an exclusive, long-term deal with Sony Classical. She is now booked five years out, including in the opening of the Met’s next season, when she will sing the part of Desdemona in a new production of Verdi’s Otello that is slated for a live-broadcast in movie theaters around the world." [Source] Read the full article "Meet Sonya Yoncheva: Opera's Brightest New Star" by clicking here and see more photos by Vogue's Ruven Afanador after the jump. Sonya Yoncheva will be appearing at the Metropolitan Gift Shop on January 22 to sign copies of her new CD, see details here. Sample tracks off the soprano's new album are also after the jump. 

Artwork For Sonya Yoncheva Debut Album On Sony Classical Revealed

You can pre-order the album by clicking here. Compare and contrast this cover with a series of other memorable label-debut albums of artists from the last 30 years.

Sonya Yoncheva Heralded As Mimì At MET By New York Times

Ms. Yoncheva in rehearsal (Photo:
Jonathan Tichler/MET Opera)

"In the third act of Puccini’s La Bohème, Mimì, the tubercular seamstress, says goodbye. 'Addio,' she tells Rodolfo, her poet lover, at the end of the aria 'Donde lieta usci,' and then repeats it for emphasis: 'Addio, senza rancor.' Many Mimìs keep this moment simple, singing both iterations of 'addio' roughly the same. But at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, the Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva first sang the word in a voice straightforward and resolute, trying desperately to project strength. The second time, she sounded wispy and vulnerable: a poignant revelation of her true feelings. Subtle, thoughtful and heart-rending, the passage seemed like the work of a veteran artist. But astonishingly, this was Ms. Yoncheva’s first staged performance of the role. Her delicate, dreamy, detailed Mimì has arrived more or less fully formed — and, for good measure, with less than two weeks’ notice and just a month after she gave birth to a son....Her voice is not huge, but her precise articulation of the text and the slightest metallic glisten in her warm tone allow it to penetrate. Her first-act aria built to a gently riveting reverie, and she grew in tragic stature as the opera went on, with her soft-grain echo of Rodolfo’s earlier melody a textbook lesson in tender nostalgia near the end. The rest of the performance was not at her level." [Source] Her debut recording, "Paris, Mon Amour," will be released on Sony Classics in January 2015.

As the delicate Puccini character Mimì in La Bohème, Sonya Yoncheva receives a triumphant review.

Plácido Domingo Takes A Bite Out Of The Big Apple For Valentine's Day

(Photo: Daniel Barry/The New York Times)

"The course of true love never does run smooth, as listeners at the New York Philharmonic’s Valentine’s Day concert were reminded during a lineup of songs about melancholic, suicidal and incestuous love. Alan Gilbert began the event at Avery Fisher Hall, where the stage was decorated with red flowers, by conducting a full-blooded rendition of the Prelude to Act I of Wagner’s Meistersinger." What followed was a full evening of tenor Plácido Domingo celebrating his 70th birthday (Jan. 21) by singing arias and songs by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Torroba, Lehár , Lara, de León and Bernstein. He shared the stage with 2010 Operalia Competition winner, soprano Sonya Yoncheva. The Spanish tenor will open tonight in Iphigénie en Tauride across the Lincoln Center Plaza at the Metropolitan Opera. [Source]