Tosca

Sonya Yoncheva comes from Bulgaria and studied piano and singing in her hometown Plovdiv as well as at the Conservatoire de Genève. Among her numerous international awards is the first prize at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition, which she won in 2010. Her diverse repertoire includes roles from the Baroque era as well as operas by Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. In a short time, Sonya Yoncheva secured a permanent place on the world’s most important stages such as the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House London, the Bavarian State Opera Munich, the State Operas in Berlin and Vienna, as well as the Opéra de Paris. She sang Gilda (Rigoletto), Tosca, Luisa Miller, and Mimì (La bohème) at the Metropolitan Opera, Violetta (La traviata) at the Berlin State Opera, the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, in Monte Carlo, and at the Bavarian State Opera Munich, Mimì at La Scala in Milan, Marguerite (Faust) at the Vienna State Opera, the Baden-Baden Festival House, and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, as well as Norma and Antonia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) also at the ROH London. Highlights of recent years include Poppea in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Salzburg Festival, the title role of Médée and Tosca at the Berlin State Opera, Desdemona (Otello) and Iolanta at the Met in New York, and Imogene (Il pirata) at the Teatro Real de Madrid. In 2020, she performed in the concert A riveder le stelle at La Scala in Milan alongside numerous renowned artists. In the 2020/21 season, she gave gala concerts and recitals in New York, Valencia, Madrid, Paris, Baden-Baden, Munich, and Salzburg, and in the summer of 2021 she sang Violetta in the Arena di Verona.

The tenor Jonas Kaufmann, born in Munich, studied singing at the Hochschule für Musik in his hometown. After engagements in Saarbrücken, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Milan, he joined the Zurich Opera House in 2001. From there, his international career took off with performances at the Lyric Opera Chicago, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, the Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper in Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, as well as the Salzburg and Bayreuth festivals. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2006. His diverse repertoire includes Italian, French, and German roles. He is active as an opera, concert, and lieder singer. He sang Verdi’s Otello in London and Munich, Massenet’s Werther in Paris, Vienna, and New York, Wagner’s Lohengrin at Bayreuth, La Scala, and Paris. He has a close collaboration with Helmut Deutsch, with whom he performed the first solo recital at the Met after Luciano Pavarotti (1994) in 2011. Many of his recordings have won awards such as the Gramophone Award. Additionally, he has been repeatedly named “Singer of the Year” by, among others, the specialist magazine Opernwelt, the classical magazine Diapason, and the juries of the International Opera Awards and ECHO Klassik. In 2013, he was appointed “Bavarian Kammersänger,” received the Bambi Award in the “Classical Music” category in 2014, the Premio Puccini in 2015, the Federal Cross of Merit in 2016, the “Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres” in 2018, and the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.

Bryn Terfel, a bass-baritone from Wales, won the Lieder Prize at the International Singing Competition Cardiff in 1989. Since then, he has performed at all the world’s major opera houses. His roles include Méphistophélès in Faust, the title role and Leporello in Don Giovanni, Jochanaan in Salome, the title role in Gianni Schicchi, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Wolfram in Tannhäuser, and Balstrode in Peter Grimes. He also sang in the critically acclaimed production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Welsh National Opera, Wotan in the Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera, as well as Sweeney Todd at the English National Opera. His recent performances include Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Balstrode at the Vienna State Opera and the Royal Opera House, the Dutchman at Grange Park Opera, Falstaff at the Zurich Opera and the Bavarian State Opera, Scarpia at the Zurich Opera and the Opéra National de Paris, Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House, and Boris Godunov at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Opera House. He is also a versatile concert singer, having performed at the BBC Proms, given lieder recitals in all the world’s major cities, and directed his own festival in Faenol, North Wales, for nine years. His discography includes operas by Mozart, Wagner, and Strauss, as well as over fifteen solo albums, and he has been awarded the Grammy, the Classical Brit, and the Gramophone Award. In 2003, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his musical achievements, received the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2006, was knighted in 2017, honored with the title of “Austrian Kammersänger” for his services to the Vienna State Opera, and received a European Cultural Prize at the Tonhalle Zurich in 2022. He was a recipient of the Shakespeare Prize from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation and was awarded the “Freedom of the City of London” in 2015.

Brent Michael Smith is from the USA. He studied voice at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and the University of Northern Iowa, as well as piano at Hope College. In 2021, he won 3rd prize at the Concorso Lirico Internazionale di Portofino, was a finalist at the Queen Sonja International Music Competition, and received the Zachary L. Loren Society scholarship. In 2020, he was a semifinalist at the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions; in 2018, he won prizes at the Opera Index Competition and the Opera Birmingham International Competition, as well as awards at the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition. In the 2016/17 season, he sang Zuniga (Carmen), the British Major (Silent Night by Kevin Puts), Friedrich Bhaer (Little Women), and Ashby (La fanciulla del West) at the Michigan Opera Theatre. In the same season, he made his debut at the Toledo Opera as Antonio (Le nozze di Figaro) and at the Glimmerglass Festival as Ariodante (Xerxes). At the Santa Fe Opera, he appeared as a Lackey (Ariadne auf Naxos). At Opera Philadelphia, he sang Celio (The Love for Three Oranges) and Peter Quince (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) in 2019. After a season at the International Opera Studio, he has been a member of the Opernhaus Zürich ensemble since 2020/21, where he has performed roles in Boris Godunow, Simon Boccanegra, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, in the ballet Monteverdi, as Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Count Lamoral (Arabella), Raimondo Bidebent (Lucia di Lammermoor), Pistola (Falstaff), Angelotti (Tosca), Gualtiero Raleigh (Roberto Devereux), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Friar Laurence (Roméo et Juliette), and Fafner (Das Rheingold).

Valeriy Murga studied at the Ukrainian National Music Academy in Kyiv. He was a finalist both at the 41st Concours International de Chant in Toulouse in 1996 and at the 7th Julian Gayarre Competition in Pamplona in 1998. In 1997, he won second prize at the Maria Callas Grand Prix in Athens and was able to take part in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition (BBC) in 1999. From 1997 to 1999, he was a soloist at the Ukrainian National Opera in Kyiv, where he performed roles including Figaro, Don Giovanni, Germont, Escamillo, Onegin, Prince Igor, and Schaunard. His repertoire also includes roles such as Marchese di Posa ("Don Carlo") and Shaklovity ("Khovanshchina").

At Zurich Opera House, Valeriy Murga appeared as a member of the IOS in productions such as Tosca (Sciarrone, Jailer) and Rigoletto (Monterone). Since the beginning of the 2000/01 season, he has been a permanent member of the ensemble and has performed in The Queen of Spades (Yeletsky), Carmen (Moralès), Salome (Second Soldier), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Fiorello/Officer), La sonnambula (Alessio), Rigoletto (Marullo and Monterone), L’italiana in Algeri (Ali), Faust (Wagner), as well as in family operas such as The Canterville Ghost (Dr. Bürkli), Robin Hood (Little John), The Enchanted Pig (Pig), and Jim Button (Half-Dragon/Grand Bonze Pi Pa Po).

He appeared in Tiefland at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and in L’italiana in Algeri at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden. Most recently in Zurich, he has been seen in The Odyssey (Eurylochus), Dialogues des Carmélites (The Jailer), La bohème (Doctor Grenvil), Alice in Wonderland (Dormouse/Tweedledum), La rondine (Butler), and The Merry Widow (Bogdanowitsch).

Johan Krogius began his musical training in the boys’ choir of the Cathedral Choir Cantores Minores in Helsinki. He later studied at the Conservatory and at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, as well as at the Stockholm University of the Arts. In 2021, he won the Timo Mustakallio Singing Competition and was also awarded first prize at the Helsinki Lied Competition. On the opera stage, he has appeared in roles such as Jaquino (Fidelio), Pong (Turandot) in Helsinki, First Man in Joonas Kokkonen’s The Last Temptations at the Jyväskylä Opera, Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, and as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at Tampere Opera, as well as recently at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, where in 2024 he also sang Don Ottavio and Ismaele (Nabucco). During the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons, he was a member of the International Opera Studio of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he appeared in roles including Leukippos in Strauss’s Daphne, Streshnev in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, Tamino, First Armored Man and First Priest (Die Zauberflöte), as well as the Innkeeper and the Major-Domo (Der Rosenkavalier), Trojan (Idomeneo), Parpignol (La bohème) and Borsa (Rigoletto). In the summer of 2024, he also performed as Kuzka (Khovanshchina) with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen in Helsinki and Stockholm. In the 2024/25 season, he made his debut as Tybalt (Roméo et Juliette), the Young Man’s Apparition (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and First Knight of the Grail (Parsifal) at the Staatsoper Berlin.

Steffan Lloyd Owen, baritone, comes from Wales. He has received numerous singing awards in the United Kingdom, including the W. Towyn Roberts Scholarship Prize, the Blue Riband Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, and the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Prize. His recent performances include the roles of Sciarrone and the Jailor in a semi-staged production of Tosca alongside Sir Bryn Terfel and Kristine Opolais at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, Escamillo (Carmen) with Buxton Opera, the title role in Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár at Welsh National Opera, and the Doctor in Verdi’s Macbeth at Mid Wales Opera. On the concert stage, he has sung Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Beaumaris Music Festival, Mozart’s Requiem with the Orchestre National de Bretagne in Rennes, and Beethoven’s Mass in C major as well as the Choral Fantasy with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales and the Welsh National Opera Orchestra. Starting with the 2024/25 season, he will be part of the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House.