Winner of the Susan Chilcott Award (2017) and an inaugural Honorary Associate Artist of the RNCM (2021), British-Iranian Soprano Soraya Mafi is fast establishing herself as one of the most captivating performers of her generation. Soraya concludes her 2021/22 season making her role and company debut as Morgana in Glyndebourne’s first ever production of Handel’s Alcina. Previously this season, Soraya performed the role of Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro for The Seattle Opera. Seattle Times Gavin Borchet commented:

“The vocal highlight, recipient of Saturday’s warmest ovation, was “Deh vieni non tardar,” Susanna’s Act IV serenade; Mafi and Ioffe stretched the closing phrases seductively and poignantly, as if reluctant to let the moment go.”

This season, she has also performed the role of Despina for English National Opera, Anne Trulove for Glyndebourne on tour and Echo for The Edinburgh International Festival. Future engagements include further roles for Glyndebourne, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Garsington Opera and Grange Park Opera and debuts for the Opéra de Rouen Normandie and the Opernhaus Zürich.

ABOUT

Soraya was born to an Iranian father and a second generation Irish mother in Bury, Greater Manchester. A talented dancer, Soraya performed with the English Youth Ballet as a teenager. However, following success in a local music festival, which resulted in her competing in and winning the National Junior English Song Prize at The Royal Academy Of Music, she chose to pursue a career in singing. The Prize included a bursary to fund singing tuition and enabled Soraya to study with Sandra Dugdale at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music ; a relationship which continued throughout her undergraduate studies at the RNCM.`

Whilst in her first year of postgraduate studies at The Royal College of Music, Soraya made her professional début with Grange Park Opera as Soeur Constance in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites to great critical approval ‘Stealing the show’ (Mark Pullinger, Opera Britannia), critics noted that ’her star potential is obvious’ Hugh Canning ‘The Sunday Times’.

As an ENO Harewood artist, Soraya’s début as Mabel in Mike Leigh’s production of The Pirates of Penzance brought further critical acclaim, Colin Clarke of ‘Seen and Heard International’ remarked ‘the rest of the cast in fact, was outshone by Soraya Mafi’s simply awe-inspiring Mabel” whist The Telegraph’s Rupert Christiansen asserted “her scintillating Poor Wand’ring One was in the Valerie Masterson class”.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Soraya has performed the role of Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro for Seattle Opera and Welsh National Opera, Gilda Rigoletto for Seattle Opera, Nannetta Falstaff for Garsington Opera, Gretel Hänsel und Gretel for Grange Park Opera and Echo ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ at the Edinburgh International Festival. She has also appeared at the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Opéra National du Rhin, English Touring Opera, Opera North and the Opéra National de Lorraine.

A Harewood Artist at the English National Opera from 2017-2021, Soraya’s roles for the company have included: Musetta La Bohème; Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Mabel The Pirates of Penzance and Yum Yum The Mikado.

Soraya's recital work has included performances at The Wigmore Hall, Leeds Lieder Festival, The Oxford Lieder Festival, The Ludow English Song Weekend, and St Martin-in-the-Fields She regularly collaborates with pianists Graham Johnson, Simon Lepper, Iain Burnside, Malcolm Martineau, Dylan Perez and Ian Tindale.

Recent concert performances include Brahms Requiem with The Seattle Symphony; Bubikopf in Der Kaiser Von Atlantis with BBC Symphony,; featured soloist with The BBC Concert Orchestra for their New Year's Celebration Concert for BBC Radio 3, Bach's B minor Mass and Weihnachts Oratorium with The Scottish Chamber Orchestra; tours of Viennese Concerts with The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and The Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Mozart Coronation Mass and Requiem at Chapelles de Versailles with Jean-Christophe Spinosi and Ensemble Mattheus; L'enfant et les Sortilèges with The Seattle Symphony Orchestra; Les Illuminations and Messiah at The Royal Festival Hall; Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man and Handel's Messiah with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and Mozart’s ‘Goose of Cairo’ with the London Mozart Players conducted by David Parry.