Simone Osborne (born 1987) is a Canadian lyric and operatic soprano. She was one of the youngest-ever winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2008 at age 21. [1]
Osborne was born in 1987 [1] in British Columbia. [2] She studied opera performance at the University of British Columbia and later joined the Canadian Opera Company's Studio Ensemble program. [3] Prior to joining the COC, she busked on the streets of Toronto in order to be able to afford singing lessons. [1]
In the 2010's, she was "considered one of Canada's most sought-after sopranos". [1] She sings with the Canadian Opera Company and has also appeared with ensembles from around the world, including the New York City Opera, the Vancouver Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her operatic roles have included Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro , Gilda in Rigoletto , and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte . [4] One of her performances of Pamina, with the Vancouver Opera, required her to learn an English and Musqueam adaptation. [3] She also participated in the Viva Verdi! gala in Zurich in celebration of Giuseppe Verdi's bicentennial. [2]
Osborne has received significant critical recognition. F. Paul Driscol of Opera News called her a "lyric soprano with outstanding ability and impressive charm". Marilyn Horne, who Osborne cites as a mentor, said Osborne is "half athlete and half artist...She understands that voices need to be brilliant, dark and bright, all at once". [1] Osborne was the first winner of the Jeunesses Musicales Canada's Maureen Forrester Award Tour, which comprises two seasons of recitals across Canada and a commission from the Canadian Art Song Project. Osborne has also won the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition at the Music Academy of the West in 2009, [5] and the International Czech and Slovak Opera Competition. [4] [6]
Marilyn Berneice Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors, and has won four Grammy Awards.
Maureen Kathleen Stewart Forrester, was a Canadian operatic contralto.
In Canada, classical music includes a range of musical styles rooted in the traditions of Western or European classical music that European settlers brought to the country from the 17th century and onwards. As well, it includes musical styles brought by other ethnic communities from the 19th century and onwards, such as Indian classical music and Chinese classical music. Since Canada's emergence as a nation in 1867, the country has produced its own composers, musicians and ensembles. As well, it has developed a music infrastructure that includes training institutions, conservatories, performance halls, and a public radio broadcaster, CBC, which programs a moderate amount of Classical music. There is a high level of public interest in classical music and education.
Frances Yeend was an American classical soprano who had an active international career as a concert and opera singer during the 1940s through the 1960s. She had a long and fruitful association with the New York City Opera (NYCO) between 1948 and 1958, after which she joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera where she sang between 1961 and 1963. She also had an extensive concert career, particularly in the United States. By 1963 she had sung in more than 200 orchestral concerts in North American with major symphonies like the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra among others.
Susanna Phillips (Huntington) is an American singer who has sung leading lyric soprano roles at leading American and international opera houses.
Isabel Bayrakdarian is a Lebanese-born Canadian operatic soprano of Armenian descent who now resides and works in the United States.
Nicole Cabell is an American opera singer. She is best known as the 2005 winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
Erin Wall was a Canadian-American operatic soprano who had an active international career from 2001 until her death of breast cancer in 2020. Chiefly associated with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Vancouver-based soprano appeared with the company in fourteen productions from 2001 through 2018. She was particularly admired for her performances in the operas of Mozart and Strauss, and performed leading roles as a guest artist at important houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, and the Paris Opera.
Sondra Dee Radvanovsky is an American and Canadian soprano. Specializing in 19th-century Italian opera, Radvanovsky is widely regarded as a leading interpreter of bel canto, verismo, and works by Giuseppe Verdi. Her repertoire includes the title roles in Médée, Norma, Tosca, and Rusalka, Leonora in Il trovatore, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and Donizetti's "Tudor Queens": the title roles in Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Elizabeth I in Roberto Devereux.
Dawn Kotoski is an American operatic soprano who has a substantial international opera career. She began her career at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City during the late 1980s singing lighter lyric soprano and soubrette roles. She joined the Vienna State Opera for the 1993–1994 season and since then her career has been centered mostly in Europe. She is the wife of tenor Neil Shicoff.
James Westman is a Canadian baritone known for his interpretation of the Verdi, Puccini and bel canto operatic repertoire, and particularly his signature role of Germont in La traviata, which he has sung in over 150 performances, with opera companies such as San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Graz Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Opéra de Montréal, Los Angeles Opera, Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, Canadian Opera Company, Boston Lyric Opera, Cologne Opera, Vancouver Opera, English National Opera, San Diego Opera, Dallas Opera, Utah Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. On January 29, 2011 Westman created the lead role of Sandy Keith In the world premiere of Bramwell Tovey's The Inventor. In 2017 he played Sir John A. MacDonald in Harry Somers's Louis Riel for the Canadian Opera Company's tribute to Canada's 150th celebrations. As a recitalist, he has performed for the Marilyn Horne Foundation, Aldeburgh Connection, Aldeburgh Festival, Musikverein, Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Morgan Library & Museum, Koerner Hall, Carnegie Hall, Saito Kinen Festival in Japan, Stratford Summer Music, British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Westman first came to attention at the age of twelve when he was the first boy soprano to perform and record Mahler 4th Symphony with Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra in 1984. Westman is regularly featured as the Anthem singer for the Toronto Maple Leafs and numerous other NHL franchises. Four of Westman's recordings have been nominated for a Juno Award. Two recordings nominated for a Grammy Award.
Betsy Norden is an American soprano who appeared with the Metropolitan Opera over 500 times.
Nadine Sierra is an American soprano. She is best known for her interpretation of Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, and Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. Currently performing in leading roles in the top opera houses around the world, she received the 1st Prize and People's Choice Award 2013 at the Neue Stimmen competition, is the 2017 Richard Tucker Music Foundation Award Winner, and was awarded the Beverly Sills Artists Award in 2018. Her debut album on the Universal Music Group label, There's a Place for Us, was released on August 24, 2018.
Jamie Barton is an American mezzo-soprano. She won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in June 2013. She is also the winner of the 2015 Richard Tucker Award.
David Pomeroy is a Canadian operatic tenor.
Irving Guttman was a Canadian stage director who had a profound impact on the field of opera within his own country. Described by The Canadian Encyclopedia as "the father of opera in Western Canada", he co-founded the Edmonton Opera, the Regina Opera Company and the Manitoba Opera; the latter of which he served as artistic director from 1977–1998.
Nicole Car is an Australian operatic soprano. She has performed leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Opéra national de Paris, The Dallas Opera, and Opera Australia. Car is particularly associated with the roles of Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Mimì in La bohème, Marguerite in Faust, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Micaëla in Carmen, and has also given noted performances as Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos, and the title roles in Luisa Miller and Thaïs.
Dina Kuznetsova is an American lyric dramatic operatic soprano of Russian descent who has appeared in leading roles on the stages of international opera houses from New York to Sydney. She has focused on Italian and Slavic repertoires. Her signature roles include Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly by Puccini, the title role in Dvořák's Rusalka, and Kátya in Kátya Kabanová by Janáček.
Heidi Stober is an American operatic soprano who has performed leading roles in major opera houses internationally, including the Dutch National Opera, the Garsington Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Municipal Theatre of Santiago, the Semperoper, and the Vienna State Opera. She has been particularly active with the Houston Grand Opera where she has performed in more than a dozen operas since 2004, including the world premieres of Daniel Catán's Salsipuedes: a Tale of Love, War and Anchovies (2004), Mark Adamo's Lysistrata (2005), and Ricky Ian Gordon's The House without a Christmas Tree (2017). She has also performed in more than ten operas with the San Francisco Opera since 2010. Since 2008 she has been a resident artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where she has primarily performed roles from the lyric soprano repertoire. Also active as a concert soprano on the international stage, she has performed with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest among other orchestras. She is particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Amber Wagner an American soprano who has performed internationally to critical acclaim. She has often performed in the operas of composer Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.