SorayaMafi

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  • Soprano

About Soraya

Lancashire-born soprano Soraya Mafi studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and Royal College of Music, supported by the Help Musicians UK Sybil Tutton Award. Soraya’s many awards and prizes include the Maggie Teyte Prize in 2014 and the Susan Chilcott Award in 2016. She was also the 2nd Prize winner in the 2015 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and is an Associate of the RNCM, an honour conferred upon recent alumni making an outstanding contribution in the early stages of their career.

In the 24/25 season, Soraya had stunning successes singing Gilda for both Welsh National Opera and Irish National Opera, a role she debuted at Seattle Opera. She also made her role debut as Pamina Die Zauberflöte at Opera North and returned to the Glyndebourne Festival for Michal Saul. In 25/26 she returns to WNO to sing Cunegonde Candide; and will make her debut for Komische Oper Berlin as Nitocris Belshazzar . On the concert platform she will sing Handel Messiah at Glyndebourne and the Musikverein, Vienna; Haydn The Creation with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; Viennese New Year concerts with the Halle Orchestra; and a recital of Donizetti duets with tenor Robert Lewis for Opera Rara at Bechstein Hall in London.

Highlights from past seasons include Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Glyndebourne Festival and Opéra de Rouen; Susanna Le nozze di Figaro for Glyndebourne on Tour and at Seattle Opera, Valencienne The Merry Widow at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Ismene Mitridate, re di Ponto for Garsington Opera.

A former Harewood Artist at the English National Opera, her roles for the company include Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mabel The Pirates of Penzance, Yum Yum The Mikado and Amor Orfeo ed Euridice. Elsewhere, she has appeared as Morgana in a new production of Alcina for the Glyndebourne Festival; Susanna Le nozze di Figaro for Seattle Opera and Welsh National Opera; Despina Cosi Fan Tutte for English National Opera; Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress for Glyndebourne on Tour; Musetta La bohème for ENO at Alexandra Palace, Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Edinburgh International Festival, Nanetta Falstaff for Garsington Opera, Gretel Hänsel und Gretel, Constance Dialogues des Carmélites and First Niece Peter Grimes for Grange Park Opera, Aminta Il re pastore at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Cintia in Legrenzi’s La divisione del mondo for the Opéra national du Rhin, Cleopatra Giulio Cesare for English Touring Opera, and Suor Genoveva Suor Angelica for Opera North.

On the concert platform she has sung with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Symphony Orchestra Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music and Ensemble Matheus with conductors such as Jonathan Cohen, Jean-Chrisophe Spinosi and Ludovic Morlot.

Her recital appearances include Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Buxton and Oxford Lieder Festivals, the Ludlow English Song Weekend, the Crush Room of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Opéra de Lille.

Soraya is based in London

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Contact

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

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Season Highlights

Sep 2025 - Oct 2025
Welsh National Opera
Bernstein: Candide (Cunegonde) Ryan McAdams (conductor)
Nov 2025 - Dec 2025
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Handel: Messiah
Dec 2025 - Dec 2025
Musiikkitalo Concert Hall, Helsinki
Haydn: The Creation Helsinki Philharmonic Jonathan Cohen (conductor)
Dec 2025 - Dec 2025
Musikverein, Vienna
Handel: Messiah Lautten Compagney Berlin Erwin Ortner (conductor)
Jan 2026 - Jan 2026
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Viennese New Year concerts Halle Orchestra Stephen Bell (conductor)
Mar 2026 - May 2026
Komische Oper Berlin
Handel: Belshazzar (Nitocris) George Petrou (conductor)
Apr 2026 - Apr 2026
Bechstein Hall, London
Recital with Robert Lewis (tenor) and Anna Tilbrook (piano) for Opera Rara

Video

Audio

  • Mendelssohn Die Mainacht
  • Mendelssohn Wanderlied
  • Strauss Frühlingsstimmen Waltz

Photos

Selected Repertoire

Beethoven

Fidelio (Marzelline)

Bellini

I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Giulietta)

Bernstein

Candide (Cunegonde)   •   West Side Story (Maria)

Bizet

Les Pêcheurs des Perles (Leïla)

Britten

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Tytania)   •   The Turn of the Screw (Governess, Flora)   •   Peter Grimes (First Niece)   •   Paul Bunyan (Tiny)

Celier

The Mountebanks (Teresa)

Charpentier

Louise (Louise)

Donizetti

L’elisir d’amore (Adina)   •   Don Pasquale (Norina)   •   Linda di Chamounix (Linda)   •   Lucia di Lammermoor (Lucia)   •   La Fille du Régiment (Marie)

Gluck

Orfeo ed Eurydice (Eurydice, Amor)

Gounod

Roméo et Juliette (Juliette)

Hammerstein

Carousel (Julie Jordan)   •   Oklahoma! (Laurie)

Handel

Alcina (Morgana)   •   Orlando (Dorinda)   •   Giulio Cesare (Cleopatra)   •   Arianna in Creta (Arianna)   •   Partenope (Partenope)   •   Semele (Semele)

Janáček

The Cunning Little Vixen (Vixen Sharp-Ears)

Legrenzi

La Divisione del Mondo (Cintia)

Massenet

Manon (Manon)   •   Werther (Sophie)

Menotti

The Telephone (Lucy)

Monteverdi

L’incoronazione di Poppea (Poppea, Virtu)

Mozart

Le Nozze di Figaro (Susanna)   •   Così fan tutte (Despina)   •   Don Giovanni (Zerlina)   •   Die Zauberflöte (Pamina, Papagena)   •   La Clemenza di Tito (Servillia)   •   Idomeneo (Ilia)   •   Il sogno di Scipione (Fortuna)   •   Zaïde (Zaïde)   •   Mitridate re di Ponto (Ismene)   •   Il Re Pastore (Aminta)

Offenbach

Orpheus in the Underworld (Eurydice)

Poulenc

Dialogues des Carmélites (Constance)

Puccini

La Boheme (Musetta)   •   Gianni Schicci (Lauretta)

Purcell

Dido and Aeneas (Belinda)

Ravel

L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Le Feu, Le Rossignol, La Princesse)

Sondheim

Sweeney Todd (Johanna)

Strauss

Der Rosenkavalier (Sophie)   •   Arabella (Zdenka)   •   Ariadne auf Naxos (Naiad, Echo)

Stravinsky

The Rake’s Progress (Ann Trulove)

Sullivan

The Mikado (Yum-yum, Peep-Bo)   •   The Pirates of Penzanze (Mabel)

Verdi

Rigoletto (Gilda)   •   Falstaff (Nanetta)   •   Un Ballo in Maschera (Oscar)

News

Press

  • Mozart Die Zauberflöte

    Welsh National Opera
    Feb 2025 - Mar 2025

    • Soraya Mafi, meanwhile, makes an exceptional role debut as a tenacious and principled Pamina: sung with thrilling assurance and swooning lyricism, she’s a princess well worth trials by fire and ice.

    • The steadfast Pamina is sung with gleaming purity of tone by coloratura soprano Soraya Mafi.

  • Verdi Rigoletto

    Irish National Opera
    Dec 2024

    • Soraya Mafi, fresh from singing the role for Welsh National Opera, returns to her part-Irish roots in what for me is the operatic performance of the year … almost floating away from the balcony in a breathtaking "Caro nome"

    • As Gilda, the English soprano Soraya Mafi … scales with incredible comfort and sweetness Verdi’s unforgiving vocal high-wire act.

    • Soraya Mafi offering a soaring innocence in her exquisite Gilda

    • Possessing a voice of angelic purity, Soraya Mafi unfurled the gossamer threads of her arias with grace and delicacy, her soprano silkily seductive and there was an effortless beauty as she reached up to those scarily high top notes.

    • ... the sweet, rounded tone of soprano Soraya Mafi made her a perfect Gilda and she comfortably handled technical challenges such as the coloratura aria ‘Caro nome'

  • Verdi Rigoletto

    Welsh National Opera
    Sep 2024

    • But really, it was Mafi’s night. She’s long been an excellent singer; but as Gilda she hit new heights – fearless, impulsive and vulnerable, but always glowing. As a foil for Luis de Vicente, Mafi was desperately moving; she lit the Act Three quartet from above and in ‘Caro nome’ she spun delicate, tumbling vocal lacework that glinted and shone against the drama’s thunderous skies.

    • British soprano Soraya Mafi, meanwhile, personifies Gilda to perfection, her aria, Caro Nome not just flawlessly voiced, but exemplifying Gilda’s perilous innocence. She stops the show.

    • As Gilda, Mafi was perfectly cast, her soprano stunningly beautiful, silvery with pin-point precision, everything immaculately delivered, and looking as young as she needs to be to portray her vulnerability, delirious with love.

    • Vocally, the honours go to Soraya Mafi who sings Gilda with exquisite sweetness, and plays her convincingly as a naively infatuated young girl.

  • Britten A Midsummer Night's Dream

    Glyndebourne Festival
    Jul 2023

    • She wore the Fairy Queen's extravagant high-Baroque frock (designed for Ileana Cotrubas in 1981) with imperious authority, and sang Tytania's glittering coloratura with a diamantine edge, suggesting a tougher cookie - she was defiant in her refusal to hand over the challenging boy to Tim Mead's Oberon - yet melting amorously into the arms of Bottom-as-an-Ass (Brandon Cedel).

      • Hugh Canning, Opera Today
      • 22 July 2023

  • Mozart Mitridate, re di Ponto

    Garsington Opera
    Jun 2023

  • Handel In the Realms of Sorrow

    London Handel Festival
    Feb 2023

    • Singing with a lovely fluency, light agility and sure sense of style, soprano Soraya Mafi was a despairing Hero, discovering her lover drowned, tearing out her hair, and then joining him in the dark waters. Mafi’s strong tone and expressive nuance, and her graceful partnership with Baker, made the torments of this mythic heroine very ‘real’ and pressing.

  • Mozart Le nozze di Figaro

    Glyndebourne on Tour
    Oct 2022

    • Mozart’s divine comedy stands or falls by its Susanna. Soraya Mafi, a rapidly rising star, is perfection, diction clear, manner funny and sharp, voice at ease in all the role’s demands. Catch this Figaro if you can.

    • The star of the evening, for me, was Soraya Mafi as Susanna: her performance was witty, pert, alert, vocally crystalline and precise, and utterly captivating. Mafi had to wait a long while for her own ‘big number’ but Act 4’s ‘Deh vieni’ was very much worth the wait. Both Williams and Mafi rose above Grandage’s comic innuendo and restored Mozart’s grace.

    • Mozart’s divine comedy thrives or falters by its Susanna and Mafi was in perfect voice as she handled with apparent ease the many demands of the role, balancing emotion and performance throughout with great comic touches, and I look forward to seeing what she does next.

  • Handel Alcina

    Glyndebourne Festival Opera
    Jul 2022

    • Another debut – long overdue – is made by the British soprano Soraya Mafi, whose dazzlingly bright and agile coloratura excited audiences across Britain for several seasons before Covid. She steals the show as Alcina’s scheming sister Morgana: flirtatious, vindictive and deliciously flighty. Her entrance in a mermaid suit is outrageous; her vivacious account of the aria Tornami a vagheggiar simply a showstopper.

    • As Morgana, Soraya Mafi sparkled in ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’, dancing evenly and crisply through the dazzling decorations, while ‘Credete al mio dolore’ was poised and expressive, its elegance aided by a lovely cello obbligato.

    • Soraya Mafi, as Morgana, gets the hit aria “Tornami a vagheggiar” and makes a sparkling job of it...

    • The singer who stole the show was Soraya Mafi, whose Act I ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’ was the evening’s clear highlight, dripping with character, and with Mafi and the band in clear resonance. Mafi lights up the stage with her infectious vivacity; she somehow manages to match that with vocal agility and pinpoint pitching.

    • The most ebullient of these choreographed arias is delivered by the superb Soraya Mafi as Alcina’s sister Morgana: a showstopping Tornami a vagheggiar that’s danced and sung, incongruously but brilliantly...

    • Soraya Mafi copes athletically with her extortionate coloratura: she sounds as if she’s having a great time.

  • Mozart Così fan tutte

    English National Opera
    Mar 2022

    • Best are Soraya Mafi’s world-weary chambermaid Despina (her accents as dizzying as her disguises), all sardonic sparkle and cynicism, and [Neal] Davies’ scheming rogue of an Alfonso.

    • Bass-baritone Neal Davies is wonderfully entertaining in this not always attractive role, larging it in a mustard Zoot, and much aided by soprano Soraya Mafi as multi-talented Despina, laughter bubbling through her nimble voice. Here Despina is a chambermaid at the Skyline Motel, and Mafi does a marvellous turn as a line-dancing sheriff presiding over an on-the-spot wedding.

    • ...the most memorable moment...came when Despina, played with impressive and infectious humour throughout by Soraya Mafi, performed a cowboy dance with the two dwarfs while singing a Mozart aria.

  • Gilbert & Sullivan The Mikado

    English National Opera
    Oct 2018

    • Soraya Mafi is effortlessly optimistic as Yum-Yum, allowing the voice to soar in The Sun, Whose Rays.

    • Soraya Mafi was very appealing as the sassy – if rather fickle and somewhat vain – schoolgirl Yum-Yum who Nanki-Poo is in love with. Her Act II aria ‘The sun whose rays are all ablaze’ was exquisite...The couple’s mock-romantic duet in the first act (‘Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted’) – when Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum think about flirting even though it is against the law – was an absolute delight.

    • As bride-to-be Yum-Yum, soprano Soraya Mafi is as delightful as ever...

  • Verdi Rigoletto

    Seattle Opera
    Aug 2019

    • It is up to the Gilda of Soraya Mafi to shoulder the weight of this production... When she is on stage, her tiny post-adolescent figure and adorably open face fix our attention utterly, and when she sings we rise with her. I have never heard a more perfectly phrased “Caro nome,” but her every note and moment are equally simple, moving and right.

  • Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel

    Grange Park Opera
    Jun 2019

    • the main pleasure comes from the singers of the title roles: Soraya Mafi, beautifully silvery of voice as Gretel.

    • The children, played by Soraya Mafi and the Australian mezzo Caitlin Hulcup, sound terrific as the mischievous pair, and sing exquisitely.

    • Caitlin Hulcup and Soraya Mafi were quite simply the most visually plausible Hansel and Gretel I have ever seen, boisterous anarchic children of the sort that always land in trouble and wangle their way out of it. Their singing was perfection – Hulcup all boyish bravado, Mafi mercurial and sparkling.

    • Soraya Mafi’s Gretel was lustrous and sweet, rising to soaring lyrical heights in the virtuosic passages of Act 3.

    • With her silvery, flexible soprano, Mafi steers Gretel just short of soubrette delight, and Hulcup’s lovely mezzo expresses any amount of adolescent diffidence, courage and affection. Hulcup is a head taller than Mafi, which puts the finishing touch to their credibility as brother and sister, and throughout they are immensely affecting and strongly directed.

    • Soraya Mafi and Caitlin Hulcup made a delightful pairing as Gretel and Hansel, for all the picturesque charm of the characters' depiction there was a fundamental seriousness to their performance which emphasised the music's quality. Mafi was a poised Gretel, shaping the lovely melodies carefully and expressively, and she was matched by Hulcup's wonderfully boyish Hansel (one of the best 'boys' I have seen in this opera for a long time), with the two voices blending and contrasting. They kept the action moving so that the scenes between them in the first two acts, which can sometimes drag somewhat, flew by.

Discography