With her “lush, creamy voice” and “giddy coloratura”, Italian-Canadian soprano Lucia Cesaroni is in demand as some of opera’s most coveted heroines, making new signature roles out of Verdi’s Violetta, Puccini’s Mimì, and Mozart’s Donna Anna. In the 2023/24 season, Cesaroni reprised her acclaimed portrayals of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Calgary Opera and Ava in Rocking Horse Winner with Tapestry Opera. She also took the stage as a featured soloist at Calgary Chamberfest and Pacific Opera Victoria’s Opera in the Summer concert series. Looking ahead, she will perform the role of Norina in Don Pasquale at Calgary Opera.

 

In 2022/23, she joined the roster of The Metropolitan Opera where she covered Olga in Giordano’s Fedora, sang Violetta in La traviata with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and returned to Pacific Opera Victoria as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. Her 2021/22 season saw Ms. Cesaroni sing the role of Donna Clara in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg at the Enescu Festival in Romania, join North Carolina Opera as Mimì in La bohème, debut with both Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as the soloist in Joe Hisaishi’s Princess Mononoke Suite and cover Violetta with the Canadian Opera Company.

 

In 2020/21, Ms. Cesaroni was slated to perform as Fiordiligi in Vancouver Opera’s Così fan tutte, Violetta in Saskatoon Opera’s production of La traviata, and Mathilde in Rossini’s Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra with Odyssey Opera (all cancelled due to COVID-19). That season, Ms. Cesaroni was able to sing the role of Ava in a cast recording of the award-winning opera by Gareth Williams and Anna Chatterton, Rocking Horse Winner, which was broadcast on CBC Radio’s Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.

 

In other recent seasons, Ms. Cesaroni made acclaimed role debuts, including Violetta and Mimì in Pacific Opera Victoria’s productions of La traviata and La bohème, as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at the Spoleto Festival under James Conlon, Micaëla in Carmen with Maine’s Bay Chamber Concerts, and Hanna Glawari in Vancouver Opera’s The Merry Widow. “Amazingly enough she even manages somehow to revolve about herself, coquettishly swivelling her svelte form in places where the rest of us aren’t even jointed...and then turn around and invest an old chestnut like Lehàr’s Vilja ballade with genuine feeling,” says Lincoln Kaye for The Vancouver Observer. A champion of Italian bel canto repertoire, Ms. Cesaroni has also joined Boston’s Odyssey Opera as Eleonora in Donizetti’s rarely performed opera, L’assedio di Calais.

 

Additional operatic credits include Donna Anna at the Teatro Aligheri di Ravenna and the Teatro Coccia di Novara, Musetta in La bohème with Opéra de Montréal, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at the Spoleto Festival, Woglinde in Das Rheingold at Pacific Opera Victoria, Norina in Don Pasquale at Saskatoon Opera, Yum-Yum in The Mikado with Toronto Operetta Theatre, and Maria in West Side Story with Vancouver Opera. 

 

As a concert artist, Ms. Cesaroni was a soloist for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”, with the Sinfonia Nazionale della RAI in Torino, a programme of duets and arias with Andrea Bocelli at the Columbus Citizens Foundation, NYC, Carmina Burana with the Berliner Symphoniker and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Handel’s Messiah with The Victoria Symphony and the Montréal Symphony Orchestra.

 

Ms. Cesaroni is a graduate of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal. Additionally, she has trained at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme at Aldeburgh, the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg-Augsberg, the Chautauqua Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the International Vocal Arts Institute. She is an alumna of the University of Toronto Opera School (MMus).