Mariana Pencheva

MARIANA PENCHEVA (Mezzo-Soprano) was born in Plovdiv. She studied in Ivanka Mihaylova's class at the Dobrin Petkov Music School. In 1991 she graduated from the Prof. Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music - Sofia, in the class of Prof. Matti Pinkas and Prof. Mila Dyulgerova. She specialised in Verona (Italy) under Rina Malatrazzi. She is a prizewinner of a number of international competitions, including the Vioti in Vercelli (1989, second prize, first prize not conferred), the CascinaLirica in Cascina, Italy (first prize), the Verdi Voices in Busseto (1991, second prize) and the Luciano Pavarotti in Philadelphia (1992), where, in a very strong competition with 1500 candidates from all over the world, she won a training scholarship and made her debut as Leonora in Donizetti's The Favourite on the stage of the Opera Theatre of Philadelphia. She has specialized with Renata Scotto and Alexandrina Miltcheva. Her international career began on the stages of some of Italy's greatest opera houses: the Teatro Comunale in Florence, the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, the Scala di Milano, where she made her debut in Spontini's La Vestale (opening of the 1993/1994 season) under the baton of Riccardo Muti, and a little later that same season she sang in Rigoletto again under his direction. From that moment on her carrier kicked off with offers from all major Italian theatres. She sang alongside Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov, Anna Netrebko, Samuel Ramey, Neil Shicoff, Edita Gruberova, Mariella Devia, Daniela Dessi, Andrea Bocelli, Dmitri Hvorostovsky , Ferruccio Furlanetto, Maria Guleghina, Leo Nucci, Renato Bruson. She has sung under the baton of Riccardo Muti, James Conlon, Riccardo Chailly, Nello Santi, Maurizio Arena, Vladimir Jurowski and has worked with directors such as Franco Zeffirelli, Mario Monicelli, Werner Herzog, Mario Martone, Luca Ronconi and Hugo De Ana. Her collaboration with the Scala di Milano proved particularly rewarding. She performed the role of Madalena in Rigoletto (Verdi) in six different seasons under the baton of Riccardo Muti, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, Riccardo Chailly and James Conlon. This was followed by appearances in La Gioconda by Ponchielli, Madama Butterfly by Puccini, The Power of Fate and A Masked Ball by Verdi, as well as a number of concerts with Janacek's Glagolitic Mass and Handel's The Resurrection. In addition to Italy, she has also appeared extensively on many other major world stages in Europe, America and Asia. She has been teaching opera singing at the Music Academy in Sofia since 2015, having her own class, and is an associate professor of opera singing.