Sonya Yoncheva - Paris, Mon Amour (2015)

Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva has taken a classic path to the brink of stardom: she made a series of last-minute substitute appearances, at New York's Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere, and ended up stealing the show. She apparently got the attention of Sony Classical, for which this is her first recording. Yoncheva hasn't specialized in French opera thus far, but this is both a good choice for her singing voice, which has an agility that may have come from her Baroque opera training under conductor William Christie, and in terms of doing something unexpected: with a few exceptions these aren't operatic hits. Instead there are French Grand Opera selections, including those by lesser-known figures such as Charles Lecocq and Andre Messager, along with a few Italian arias from operas set in Paris (except for the one from Puccini's almost-unperformed Le villi, these are the hits from La Traviata and La boheme). Yoncheva has to have both power over long stretches and a certain dose of frail sentiment in the big French pieces, and she succeeds admirably. Another unexpectedly emerging star here is the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana under Frederic Chaslin. A fine pick for anyone hoping to identify the next generation of opera stars, a striking number of whom seem likely to emerge from Eastern Europe. -- James Manheim