Mariana Pencheva was born on 17.01.1966 in the city of Plovdiv, where she began her singing education in the class of teacher Ivanka Mihaylova at the Secondary Music School “Dobrin Petkov”. She then continued her studies at the National Academy of Music “Prof. Pancho Vladigerov” in Sofia in the class of Prof. Mati Pinkas and Prof. Mila Dyulgerova, where she graduated with master's degree in 1991.
After graduating from the Music Academy, she went to specialize in Verona (Italy) in the class of the famous soprano and vocal teacher Rina Malatrasi. She is a laureate of a number of international competitions, including "Viotti" in Vercelli, in 1989, (Second prize, no first prize awarded); "Cascinalirica" in Cascina, Italy (First prize); "Verdi Voices" in Busseto in 1991 (Second Prize) and "Luciano Pavarotti" in Philadelphia in 1992, where, in extremely strong competition by 1500 candidates from all over the world, in addition to the laureate title, she won a scholarship for training and debuted in the role of Leonora from Gaetano Donizetti's "The Favorite" on the stage of the Philadelphia Opera House.
She specialized with Renata Scotto and Alexandrina Miltcheva.
Her international career began on the stages of some of the largest Italian opera houses – Teatro Comunale in Florence, where she took part in concerts with "Gloria" by Vivaldi and "Job" by Dallapiccola. Very soon after, came her debut on the opera stage in "Rigoletto" at Teatro La Fenice in Venice in January 1992. At the end of the same year, she returned to the stage of Teatro La Fenice, this time in the role of Flora from Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, where she partnered with Edita Gruberova, Neil Shicoff and Giorgio Zancanaro (the performance was also filmed on DVD).
On the stage of Milan's La Scala she made her debut in Spontini's "La Vestaletta" (opening the 1993/94 season) under the direction of Riccardo Muti, and a little later in the same season in "Rigoletto", again under his direction. From that moment on, all the major Italian theaters opened their doors to her: Naples' San Carlo for Ulrica from "Un ballo in maschera", together with Luciano Pavarotti. Later, she returned to the Neapolitan stage for "Lohengrin", "Cavalleria rusticana", "Tannhäuser", and "Adriana Lecouvreur". At the Teatro Comunale in Bologna she sang in Verdi's "Falstaff", "Un ballo in maschera", "Il trovatore" and Requiem, and at the Teatro Reggio in Parma in "La forza di destino", "Aida", "Oberto, Count of San Bonifacio". The Teatro Verdi in Trieste invited her for "Adriana Lecouvreur", "Les Cavaliers d'Equebu", "Aida" and "Il trovatore", while the Teatro Reggio in Turin gave her the opportunity to perform in "Lohengrin", "Il trovatore", "Don Carlo", "Cavalleria rusticana" and Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex". At the Teatro Massimo in Palermo she sang the role of Olga in "Eugene Onegin", alongside Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov, followed by Marco Tutino's "La lupa", "Cavalleria rusticana", "Aida" and "Il trovatore". At the Teatro Bellini, Catania she performed in "Aida", "Madame Butterfly" and "Cassandra" by Vittorio Necchi, and at the Rome Opera she opened the 1997/98 season with Respighi's "La fiamma", followed by "Maria Stuart", "Aida" and "Falstaff". At the Rossini Festival in Pesaro she sang in "Riccardo and Zoraide", "Moses and the Pharaoh" and Little solemn Mass and at the Macerata Festival she performed in "Norma" and "Aida". Her collaboration with La Scala in Milan proved to be particularly fruitful - in addition to "La Vestal", Mariana Pencheva sang Maddalena in the production of "Rigoletto" in six different seasons, when this extremely successful production was re-staged on the stage of La Scala in Milan. As conductors, Riccardo Muti, Roberto Rizzi-Brignoli, Riccardo Chailly and James Conlon took turns at the podium. The next titles in which Mariana Pencheva performed on the same prestigious stage were "La Gioconda", "Madame Butterfly", "The Force of Destiny" and "A Masked Ball", as well as a number of concerts with Janáček's "Glagolitic Mass" and Handel's "Resurrection".
In addition to Italy, she actively performs on numerous world stages, singing the roles of: Mrs. Quickley in "Falstaff" in Tokyo, Brussels, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Monte Carlo and Bremen; Laura in Ponchielli's "La Gioconda" at the Nice Opera, in London's Covent Garden and in the Teatro del Liceo, Barcelona. The role of Ulrica in "Un Ballo in Maschera" is also one of her most frequently performed, on some of the world's largest stages such as the Staatsoper Berlin, the New National Theater in Tokyo, the opera houses in Leipzig, Munich, Zurich, Düsseldorf, Las Palmas, Graz, Lausanne, Melbourne and Sydney. With the role of Azucena from "Il Trovatore" Mariana Pencheva has guested at the Paris Opera Bastille, Tokyo, Montevideo, Sofia and Athens, and as Eboli from "Don Carlos" she has sung in San Diego, Tokyo, Athens and Sofia. The role of Ortrud from "Lohengrin" has taken her to the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville and the San Diego Opera, and Amneris from "Aida" in Seoul and San Diego. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin she participated in a concert performance of the opera "Cavalleria rusticana" by Mascagni, together with Andrea Bocelli.
She has worked with conductors and directors such as Richard Bonning, Riccardo Muti, Franco Zeffirelli, Riccardo Chailly, Mario Monicelli, Daniele Gatti, Werner Herzog, Maurizio Arena, Hugo De Anna, Willy Decker, Maurizio Benini, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Antonello Alemandi, Daniele Calegari, Deniz Kriev, Federico Tiezzi, Nello Santi and Antonio Pappano.
Since 2015 she has been teaching at the National Academy of Music "Prof. Pancho Vladigerov" in Sofia, where she has her own independent singing class.
