Elizabeth Polese

Soprano

Canadian soprano Elizabeth Polese has been praised as “powerful and engaging” [The Globe and Mail], “sparkling” and “delightful”, with “power to spare” [Opera Canada]. Polese is a recent graduate of l’Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Centre, winner of the prestigious 2019-20 Sullivan Foundation Gail Robinson Award for Soprano, and of the 2021 Hnatyshyn Foundation Prize for Classical Voice.

The upcoming season will see Elizabeth performing in recital with her duo partner, harpist Antoine Malette-Chénier, with Les Concerts Ponticello and on tour with Orchestre Symphonique de Trois Rivères. She will also work again with Opéra de Montréal as a cover in Julilen Bilodeau’s new work La Beauté du Monde and as Papagena is Barry Kosky’s spectacular production of Die Zauberflöte. Learn more at www.elizabethpolese.ca/schedule.

Highlights of her time at Opéra de Montréal included the privilege of working with world renowned conductors like Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nicole Paiement, Alain Trudel, and Carlo Montanaro, and Elizabeth especially enjoyed working with sensational fellow young artists in the instrumental world like Nicolas Ellis and l’Orchestre de l’Agora. Along with many concert performances, she performed the roles of Alice B. Toklas in the Canadian premiere of Twenty-Seven (Gordon + Vavrek), Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw (with Orchestre de l’Agora) Contessa di Ceprano in Rigoletto (with René Barbara as Duca), and covered the roles of Marzelline in Fidelio (Orchestre Métropolitain), Agnès in Written on Skin, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte (COVID-19 cancellation). Other COVID-19 cancellations included performances of Mozart’s Mass in C, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, the Governess in The Turn of the Screw, and concert performances at Tanglewood Music Centre.

Possessing an affinity for oratorio, many staples of Polese’s repertoire include Messiah, Carmina Burana, and several Bach cantatas, and she 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). Polese is also at home in new music and has also performed works by Messiaen, Knussen, Foss, Gordon, Freedman, Cage, Crumb, Benjamin, and Stravinsky, among others.

Her varied collection of repertoire has brought her success in several competitions, most notably winning the 2019 Sullivan Foundation Gail Robinson Award for Soprano, Second Prize and Best Performance of a Canadian Work at the Concours de Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Manuvie in 2017, and placing as a semi-finalist at the Concours Voix Nouvelles in Massy, France in 2018.

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