Петя Цонева

Born in Rousse and schooled there — first at the Prof. Veselin Stoyanov school of arts with Georgi Deliganev, then in Blagovesta Karnobatlova's class at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music, from which she graduated in 1997 — she began professionally a year later with Eurostage, the newly founded private Bulgarian company, singing Maddalena, Suzuki and Fenena on tours through the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, France and Portugal. Amneris came at Wels in Austria in 2002, and with it the heavier Verdi and verismo parts: Azucena, Eboli, Santuzza, Adalgisa and Carmen, sung in Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the United States. Since 2003 she has prepared her roles with Maya Popova. A soloist of State Opera Rousse from 2006, she has carried much of the company's mezzo repertoire — Amneris and Azucena again, Ulrica, Preziosilla, Cherubino, Berta, Prince Orlofsky, Nicklausse and Ernestina in Rossini's L'equivoco stravagante — alongside concert work in the Mozart and Verdi requiems, the Pergolesi and Rossini Stabat Mater settings and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, and she takes part in the house's educational programmes. Her Rousse years began during Nayden Todorov's directorship of the company. With the Rousse company she has taken part in its large-scale stagings of Nabucco, Aida and Don Carlos, and she has toured abroad with the ensemble, including to Germany, Spain and Switzerland. She has also sung with Opera Verdi Europa, whose touring took her to England among other countries, and Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor belongs to her comprimario roles. In earlier years she was billed as Petya Dimitrova, the name under which reviews of her 2003 performances with the Plovdiv Opera credit her.