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Biography

Sonia Prina, born Nov. 30, 1975, in Magenta, Italy, is one of the most accomplished contraltos of her generation, particularly appreciated in the Baroque repertoire, particularly in the works of Händel and Vivaldi.

She began her musical studies at the age of thirteen, graduating in trumpet and singing from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. In 1994 she was admitted to the Accademia per Giovani Cantanti Lirici del Teatro alla Scala, where she honed her talent and launched an international career.

Career

In 1998, at only twenty-three years old, she made her Teatro alla Scala debut as Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, alongside Juan Diego Flórez as Almaviva.

Throughout his career, he has performed principal roles in such Händel operas as Julius Caesar (Paris, Dresden, Turin), Orlando (Sydney, Paris, Dresden), Tamerlane (Munich), Amadigi (Naples), Rinaldo (Zurich, Milan, Glyndebourne), Silla (Rome, Bucharest, Yokohama), Ariodante (Aix-en-Provence, Barcelona, San Francisco), Xerxes (San Francisco, Houston), Aci, Galatea and Polyphemus (Brussels, Bucharest, London) and Messiah at the Musikverein in Vienna and the Philharmonie in Paris.

The Baroque repertoire also extends to Vivaldi with Farnace (Madrid, Venice), Teuzzone (Barcelona) with Jordi Savall, Ottone in villa and Orlando furioso with Diego Fasolis, Juditha Triumphans with Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Scarlatti’s Vergine Addolorata with Fabio Biondi and Hasse’s Semele with Claudio Osele.

At the same time, she expanded her repertoire with Romantic and post-Romantic operas: Verdi’s Falstaff (as Mistress Quickly in Berlin, Parma, Turin), Donizetti’s Anna Bolena (Barcelona), Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Palermo, Naples), Luisa Miller (Barcelona), and the premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Chansons populaires under the baton of Zubin Mehta in Florence.

Highlights included debuting in Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba at the Salzburg Festival and in Gluck’s Ezio at Oper Frankfurt. She was Clarice in La pietra del paragone at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri at the Teatro Regio in Turin.

In 2017/2018 she was artist-in-residence at Wigmore Hall in London, where she has been regularly invited since 2012.

Collaborations and repertoire

Sonia Prina is internationally recognized for her unique voice and interpretive intensity, qualities that have led her to collaborate with conductors such as Emmanuelle Haïm, Antonio Pappano, Erwin Ortner, Hervé Niquet, Riccardo Frizza, Donato Renzetti and Zubin Mehta.

He has sung with some of the most prestigious orchestras and ensembles specializing in historically informed performance practice, including Accademia Bizantina, Il Giardino Armonico, Ensemble Matheus, Le Concert d’Astrée, laBarocca, Kammerorchester Basel, Berliner Philharmoniker and I Solisti Veneti.

In addition to his operatic career, he has a prominent recording career, with recordings for labels such as Virgin, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Naïve, and Glossa. Major titles include Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, La Resurrezione, Lotario, Rodelinda, Ezio, La Senna festeggiante, Ottone in villa, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and the album Heroes in Love, with previously unreleased recordings dedicated to Gluck.

Recent engagements include the role of Bajazet in Vivaldi’s Il Tamerlano at Teatro La Fenice and that of Ptolemy in Julius Caesar in Cologne, as well as a recital with I Solisti Veneti in Madrid and a premiere in Hamburg with Arsenale Sonoro.

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