Chelsea Bonagura is a member of the voice faculty at the prestigious Mannes School of Music in New York City and maintains an active voice studio in the Netherlands in Amsterdam. She is also a student and teaching protégé of famed Italian-American soprano Diana Soviero, for whom she serves as teaching associate. Students of Ms. Bonagura have gone on to sing in renowned training programs including San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program and the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Program. Highly respected by fellow professional artists, she works with musicians performing at leading international opera houses and concert halls including the Vienna Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, Dutch National Opera, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Concertgebouw, and the Metropolitan Opera. Non-classical students have embarked upon international Broadway tours and enjoyed careers as acclaimed pop recording artists. Soprano Eva Maria Westbroek writes regarding Ms. Bonagura “she has taken me on an exhilarating journey; I feel like I am finally connecting to my true voice and am more excited about singing than I have been in a decade.”

In addition to her work at the Mannes School of Music, Ms. Bonagura has quickly gained an international reputation as a premiere voice teacher and vocal technician. She maintains an active private studio catering to singers of a wide array of disciplines, including opera, classical, musical theatre, and contemporary styles. Specializing primarily in the Garcia operatic technique, a style that produced some of the finest singers of the golden age, Ms. Bonagura prioritizes a holistic technical approach designed to maximize vocal efficiency, allowing students to enjoy decades of healthy vocal artistry and freedom of expression.

Lauded for her “soaring dramatic soprano” her “gorgeous sound” and “parallel mixture of tenderness and fire”, Ms. Bonagura has performed throughout North America and abroad, with role highlights including Cunegoode in Candide, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Mimi in La Bohème, Micaëla in Carmen, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel, and La Princesse in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. Ms. Bonagura enjoys frequent collaborations with contemporary composers, having created the roles of Princesa and Bambina in Car Crash Opera by Michaela Eremiasova and Jairo Duarte-Lopez, as well as the role of Mei in A Dream of Flight by Sarana Chou.