Praised for “her natural warmth matched equally by innate lyricism” (Opera Canada) and “glittering brilliance with her soaring top notes,” (Opera Canada), Canadian soprano Nicole Leung looks forward to summer concert performances with Calgary Opera and Ammolite Opera. Most recently, she made her debut at Koerner Hall in Toronto, ON, performing Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5. Nicole has been seen in the roles of Soprano in the House (Rocking Horse Winner) with Ammolite Opera, Adina (L’elisir d’amore) with Toronto City Opera and Calgary Opera, Pamina (The Magic Flute) with The Little Opera Company, as well as Frasquita (Carmen), Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Delia (Stone Soup) and Héro (Béatrice et Bénédict) with Calgary Opera. She has been a previous emerging artist with Opera on the Avalon, a previous laureate of Les Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques and has been engaged for concert performances by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Edmonton Opera. Last Spring, she covered Orsia in Opera Parallèle’s world premiere The Pigeon Keeper, followed by covering Gilda in Pacific Opera Victoria’s production of Rigoletto.
She is also an alumna of Festival Napa Valley as a Manetti Shrem Vocal Fellow, where she covered Adina, as well as an alumna of The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where she sang Ofglen in a workshop of The Handmaid’s Tale.
A graduate of the Yale School of Music, Nicole was seen as Rosalba in Florencia en el Amazonas, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, and Morgana in Alcina. She sang the role of Amy in a workshop of the world-premier opera The Snowy Day by Joel Thompson and libretto by Andrea Davis Pinkney, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera. Within the Yale Opera Scenes Program, she was seen in Falstaff (Nanetta), Le Comte Ory (Comtesse Adèle), Ariadne auf Naxos (Naiad), Béatrice et Bénédict (Héro), La Rondine (Lisette), Der Rosenkavalier (Sophie), and La Bohème (Musetta). In addition to operatic performances, Nicole appeared as Soprano Soloist with Waterbury Symphony Orchestra in their Mozart Requiem performance and as Soprano Soloist in Beethoven’s Chorale Fantasy withthe Yale Philharmonia.
An avid performer of art song, Nicole is a two time prize recipient of the Poulenc Prize from Les Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques and she has also attended SongFest in Los Angeles, CA as both a Young Artist and Studio Artist, underwritten by the Art Song Foundation of Canada. At SongFest, she had the opportunity to work alongside composers John Musto and Jake Heggie in curated concert performances. As a devoted interpreter of song repertoire, she was honored to receive Third Place in the Hal Leonard American Vocal Competition for Art Song in 2019.
In addition to her operatic and song performances, she has appeared as Soprano Soloist in a variety of concert programs, including Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and Brahms’ Neue Liebeslieder. She has been named a semifinalist (Tier II) with the James Toland Vocal Competition and has received support from The Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation. Nicole holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (BM ‘19) and the Yale School of Music (MM ‘21, MMA ‘22). She splits her time between Calgary and her hometown, Toronto.