Canadian opera talent took centre stage this weekend as three of the country’s most promising young artists claimed top prizes at the George London Foundation Awards Competition in New York City.  Soprano Lauren Margison and mezzo-sopranos Rihab Chaieb and Emily D’Angelo each took home $10,000 USD alongside three other American winners.

The annual competition began in 1971 as a way of rewarding North America’s best young opera performers during the early, and often challenging, stage of their careers. This year, 72 singers were chosen to audition from more than 150 applicants; of those singers, 17 were selected as finalists.

What is particularly remarkable about this year’s Canadian winners: each is a graduate or incoming member of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio Program. Recently,  New York Times culture reporter Michael Cooper called opera “an increasingly important Canadian export” – and it’s programs like the COC Ensemble that fosters each new generation of homegrown opera singers.

Lauren Margison, 25, has been a member of Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal since 2016. She first joined the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus in 1999 and appeared the next year in the Canadian Opera Company’s mainstage production of La Bohème. Since then, Margison placed as the youngest finalist at the highly-competitive Meistersinger Vocal Competition in Nuremberg and, in 2017, sang Micaëla in Carmen with the Brott Music Festival as well as Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) and Marguerite (Faust) at Highlands Opera Studio. Later this year, the Canadian Opera Company welcomes Margison to its prestigious Ensemble Studio program for the 2018/2019 season.

Rihab Chaieb, 31, is currently a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Program and a 2016 winner of the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. Chaieb is a graduate of the COC Ensemble Studio and notably performed as Waltraute in Atom Egoyan’s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre in Toronto and Sesto in Christopher Alden’s La clemenza di Tito.  As an active concert singer as well, she made her Carnegie Hall debut singing Bach’s Magnificat in 2016. Recently at the Metropolitan Opera, she appeared as the Sandman in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and as Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. In 2019, she takes on the role of Zerlina in Don Giovanni with the Met.

Emily D’Angelo, 23, is a current member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Program and graduate of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio. D’Angelo took home first prize at the 2017 Gerda Lisnner International Voice Competition and 2016 American National Opera Association Competition as well as being named a winner of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Finals. This summer, she makes her role debut as Rosina in The Barber of Seville at the Glimmerglass Festival in July. D’Angelo returns to Toronto in February 2019 to make her role debut as Dorabella in Così fan tutte with the COC.

As Canadian opera talent continues to grow and gain international acclaim, one thing seems clear: it’s not just the northern lights shining brightly around these parts.

Read more about the COC Ensemble here