Iwona Sobotka

The Polish soprano Iwona Sobotka has established herself as one of the most captivating spinto sopranos working today. She shines on stage in the great Verdi and Puccini soprano roles while maintaining a concert career with the world’s most renowned orchestras. She gained international recognition in 2004 when she won the Grand Prix at the Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels.

In 2025/26 she opened the Tokyo Spring Festival as Amelia (Simon Boccanegra) under Riccardo Muti, going on to sing the title roles of Verdi’s Aida at Opera Hong Kong and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, along with Leonora (Il trovatore) at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa and Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) in Palma de Mallorca. She also made her role debut as the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) with the Baltic Opera. She closes her season with her debut at the Salzburg Festival under Riccardo Muti.

Since her opera debut in 2004 at the Paris Opéra, she has appeared at venues including the Komische Oper Berlin, the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, the Teatr Wielki in Poznań, the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Her repertory includes the title roles of Dvořák’s Rusalka and Puccini’s Turandot, Madama Butterfly and Tosca, as well as Mimì (La bohème), Violetta (La traviata), Desdemona (Otello), Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Roxana in Szymanowski’s Król Roger, Podtochina‘s Daughter in Shostakovich’s The Nose and, in concert, Isolde (Tristan und Isolde).

Important concert appearances have included Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Orchestre National de France under Riccardo Muti, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge with the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with the Staatskapelle Berlin and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival.

Together with Piotr Beczala and the pianist Piotr Anderszewski she promotes the music of Karol Szymanowski. She has won Polish and international record awards for her recordings of Szymanowski’s music.

Iwona Sobotka is a graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin Music University in Warsaw and of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid, where she studied with Tom Krause.