Canadian soprano Elizabeth Polese has recently been a young artist at Detroit Opera, l’Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, and Tanglewood Music Center. She is the winner of the prestigious 2019-20 Sullivan Foundation Gail Robinson Award for Soprano, and 2021 Hnatyshyn Foundation Developing Artist Award for Classical Voice. She is also the founder of new Montréal-based chamber group, Ember Ensemble.

Elizabeth’s upcoming and recent highlights include soprano soloist in Carmina Burana with Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Woodbird in Siegfried at Edmonton Opera, a winner of the Edmonton Opera Rumbold Competition, Vier Letzte Lieder with Festival de Lanaudière, soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Pierre Mercure’s Cantate pour une joie with Orchestre Classique de Montréal, artist-in-residence with Yukon Arts Centre, soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with Brott Music Festival, and recital appearances with Salle Bourgie, Ottawa ChamberFest, Société d’Art Vocal de Montreal, and Toronto Summer Music.

Recent seasons have seen Elizabeth as Norina in Don Pasquale with Vancouver Opera, The Governess in The Turn of the Screw with Opera 5, Nuria in Ainadamar with Opéra de Montréal, Isabel in Lessons in Love and Violence with Tanglewood Music Centre (to critical acclaim by the New York Times and Boston Globe), and as Papagena in Barry Kosky’s Die Zauberflöte with Opéra de Montréal. She has also appeared as soprano soloist in Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with Choral Connection, Webern’s Vier Lieder and Bach BWV 204 with Gewandhaus Orchester.

Highlights of Elizabeth’s Detroit Opera Resident Artist tenure include Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Marguerite (cover) in Faust, and Margarita (cover) and Nuria (cover) in Ainadamar. Highlights of Elizabeth’s young artist residency at l’Atelier lyirque de l’Opéra de Montréal include Alice B. Toklas in the Canadian premiere of Twenty-Seven, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw (l’Orchestre de l’Agora) Contessa di Ceprano in Rigoletto, and covers of Marzelline in Fidelio (Orchestre Métropolitain), and Agnès in Written on Skin.

Other engagements of note include Carmina Burana with Kingston Symphony Orchestra, Exsultate, Jubilate with Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte with Brott Opera, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera York, and Time Cycle (Lukas Foss) and Whitman Settings (Oliver Knussen) with Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. In 2019, Elizabeth was the winner of the Sullivan Foundation Gail Robinson Award for Soprano, the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Classical Voice in 2021, and has won several competitions for her rendition of Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate (University of Toronto Concerto Competition, Toronto Mozart Competition, Ottawa Symphony Orchestra Mozart-Sénécal Prize). A proponent of new music as well, Elizabeth regularly performs works by Golijov, Messiaen, Knussen, Foss, Gordon, Freedman, Cage, Crumb, Benjamin, and Stravinsky, among others.

Ms. Polese is an alumna of many esteemed training institutions internationally, including the Rebanks Family Fellowship of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Highlands Opera Studio, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Universität der Künste Berlin, Domaine Forget, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Brott Opera, Opera NUOVA, Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, Victoria Conservatory of Music, and Centre d’Arts Orford. She holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Toronto, where she studied under the tutelage of celebrated Canadian soprano, Mary Morrison (OC).

Elizabeth is currently based in Montréal, Canada.

Photo: Kevin Calixte