Lauded for her \u201crich, humane soprano\u201d (Opera Canada) and \u201cconvincing and poignant\u201d portrayals (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Canadian soprano Olivia Smith is quickly establishing herself as one of the most exciting young lyric sopranos of her generation.<\/p>\n
In the 2026\/27 season, Olivia Smith returns to San Francisco Opera in her role debut as Countess Almaviva in Mozart\u2019s Le nozze di Figaro<\/em><\/strong> under the baton of Sebastian Weigle. At Theater St. Gallen, she celebrates another important role debut as the titular Alcina<\/em><\/strong> in Handel\u2019s masterpiece and appears as Antonia in Offenbach\u2019s Les contes d\u2019Hoffmann<\/em><\/strong>. She also joins the company\u2019s production of Floyd\u2019s Susannah<\/em><\/strong>, appearing as Mrs. Hayes. Further engagements include performances in the traditional New Year\u2019s Concerts with the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen under Pietro Rizzo in St. Gallen and Mels.<\/p>\n During the 2025\/26 season, Smith joined the ensemble of Theater St. Gallen, where she appeared as Mim\u00ec in La boh\u00e8me<\/em><\/strong>, Fiordiligi in Mozart\u2019s Cos\u00ec fan tutte<\/em><\/strong>, and Helena in Purcell\u2019s The Fairy Queen<\/em><\/strong>. In the same season, as a second-year member of San Francisco Opera\u2019s Adler Fellowship Program, Olivia Smith debuted as Mica\u00ebla in the company\u2019s immersive \u201cCarmen Encounter\u201d while covering the role for the mainstage performances. She also covered Ilia in Mozart\u2019s Idomeneo<\/em> <\/strong>and appeared in numerous San Francisco Opera concert programmes. In 2024\/25, Smith made both her company and role debut with the Philadelphia Opera as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni<\/em> <\/strong>led by Corrado Rovaris, and was also heard in recital with pianist Grant Loehnig. In addition, she gave her first performances as Pamina in The Magic Flute<\/em><\/strong> with Opera Naples.<\/p>\n In previous seasons with San Francisco Opera, Olivia Smith appeared as the First Lady in Mozart\u2019s Die Zauberfl\u00f6te<\/em><\/strong> and received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Chrisann Brennan in Mason Bates and Mark Campbell\u2019s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs<\/em><\/strong>. She made her mainstage debut in 2023 as the Voice of the Falcon in Strauss\u2019 Die Frau ohne Schatten<\/em><\/strong> and performed Mim\u00ec in Boh\u00e8me Out of the Box<\/em><\/strong>. As a participant in the 2022 Merola Opera Program, she appeared as Margarita Xirgu in scenes from Golijov\u2019s Ainadamar<\/em> <\/strong>and as Le\u00efla in excerpts from Bizet\u2019s Les p\u00eacheurs de perles<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Smith performed the Governess in Britten\u2019s The Turn of the Screw<\/em><\/strong> with Curtis Opera Theatre and Marguerite in excerpts from Gounod\u2019s Faust<\/em><\/strong> with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. Additional roles include Cathleen in Vaughan Williams\u2019 Riders to the Sea<\/em><\/strong>, the First Witch in Purcell\u2019s Dido and Aeneas<\/em><\/strong>, and Mrs. Gobineau in Menotti\u2019s The Medium<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Olivia Smith has received numerous awards, including the Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez Encouragement Award and the Online Viewers\u2019 Choice Award in Houston Grand Opera\u2019s Eleanor McCollum Competition, First Prize in Opera Grand Rapids\u2019 VanderLaan Prize Competition, and an Encouragement Grant from the George and Nora London Foundation for Singers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lauded for her \u201crich, humane soprano\u201d (Opera Canada) and \u201cconvincing and poignant\u201d portrayals (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Canadian soprano Olivia Smith is quickly establishing herself as one of the most exciting young lyric sopranos of her generation.<\/p>\n In the 2026\/27 season, Olivia Smith returns to San Francisco Opera in her role debut as Countess Almaviva in Mozart\u2019s Le nozze di Figaro under the baton of Sebastian Weigle. At Theater St. Gallen, she celebrates another important role debut as the titular Alcina in Handel\u2019s masterpiece and appears as Antonia in Offenbach\u2019s Les contes d\u2019Hoffmann. She also joins the company\u2019s production of Floyd\u2019s Susannah, appearing as Mrs. Hayes. Further engagements include performances in the traditional New Year\u2019s Concerts with the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen under Pietro Rizzo in St. Gallen and Mels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soprano"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6695"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12847,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6695\/revisions\/12847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}