Get to know Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka with this article from our spring program! Curious to know more? Be sure to check out our Rapidfire video with Adrianne here.

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What is your go-to song for karaoke? 
“I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor

What is the best advice you’ve been given?
“Slow and steady wins the race.” I’m soon approaching my 30-year anniversary on stage so this is fitting. I like to pass this advice on to young singers.

If you weren’t an opera singer, you would be?
A high school music teacher who would also direct the yearly school musical production.

What is your dream operatic role, regardless of voice type?
Rodrigo Marquis de Posa in Verdi’s Don Carlo. He gets the most beautiful arias and duets and dies a noble, heartbreaking death.

What book have you read again and again?
Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I’ve always wanted to go to Australia... maybe I’d catch the Australian Open tennis tournament while I was there.

If you were in a girl band, what would the band’s name be?
“Nasty Women”

Who are three people, alive or dead or fictional, that you would like to have dinner with?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Albert Einstein and Meryl Streep

Who is your favourite artist of all time, from any art form?
Franz Schubert

What is the first thing you do when you arrive in a new city?
Make sure the Wi-Fi is working in my apartment or hotel. The internet and Skype are the lifeline to my family and I feel lost without it.

What is the first thing you do when you arrive back home?
Hug my wife and daughter and then cuddle our two cats.

Above: Adrianne Pieczonka (right) with her wife Laura Tucker (left) and their daughter Grace.

You can only watch one movie/TV show for the rest of your life. What would that be?
The film Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. The imagery of the English countryside itself is exquisite, not to mention this brilliant adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel.

If you had to be locked up in a building overnight, what building would you most like to be locked in?
What an intriguing question! Being locked up in a spa would be pretty nice. I love swimming, saunas and steam rooms, and I could easily spend a night doing all three.

What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
I’m an introvert.

What’s the best thing about being an opera singer?
Singing is good for the soul and studies have shown that singing also has other health benefits too. One takes it for granted when one is younger, but the older I am, the more grateful I am that I can earn my living as an opera singer. It’s a privilege!

What’s something that you have always wanted to try but you’ve been too scared to do?
Parachuting. I’m still too scared! When I turned 30, I actually booked a parachute jump in Austria but I chickened out and canceled it! I’m still too scared.

What would be the title of your autobiography?
An die Musik

What is one piece of advice for Tosca?
Make sure you judge the distance between you and Scarpia carefully when you rush in to stab him in Act II. If not it can look very awkward indeed! And good luck for the final jump of course.

 

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Adrianne Pieczonka performs the title role in our production of Tosca. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Photo credits: Adrianne Pieczonka and Carlo Ventre in ​Tosca ​(COC, 2012), photos by Michael Cooper