Syona Ayyankeril, soprano

Syona has been a regular performer at Lamplighters Music Theatre, having recently starred as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance (2024), Aline in The Sorcerer (2025), and Josephine in HMS Pinafore (2025).

Syona has also performed with Pocket Opera and will be making her Cinnabar Theatre debut in 2026.

(photo from the lobby of Lamplighters’ 2024 Pirates of Penzance with Eduardo Gonzalez Maldonado as the Pirate King)

Syona completed her MM in voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is currently a postgraduate student studying with Catherine Cook.

Her roles at SFCM have included Cunegonde in Candide and Phoebe D’ysquith in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. She has also performed in both the Graduate Opera Workshop and Musical Theatre showcases.

In 2026 she will sing La Fée in Massenet’s Cendrillon and play Rona Lisa Peretti in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Syona holds a professional certificate in Opera Direction from Ithaca College, where she studied under Chuck Hudson.

During her studies at SFCM she has directed for the Graduate Opera Workshop ensemble and worked as an assistant director and assistant stage manager for the Opera and Musical Theatre Department.

Syona graduated from Ithaca College in 2021 with a B.M. in Voice with an Outside Field in Theatre.

At IC, she studied voice with Deborah Montgomery-Cove and performed the roles of Monica in The Medium, Second Woman in Dido and Aeneas, and she covered the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute.

Her theatre coursework included acting, directing, dance, production, and theatre history.

After graduating from Ithaca College, Syona was an Apprentice Artist with Opera Ithaca from 2021-2023.

Her work included youth outreach, concert performances, workshopping new opera, and singing in the choruses of Orpheus in the Underworld, Le nozze di Figaro, and Highway 1, USA.

(photo taken from Opera Ithaca’s Orpheus in the Underworld, 2023)