Nicole Car Makes Her Covent Garden Debut
It’s a busy year and Christmas in London for Australian soprano Nicole Car who has just finished a season singing the role of Countess Almaviva in Opera Australia’s production of The Marriage of Figaro. Earlier this year she sang Marguerite in Faust, for the company and next year she will sing for them again, making her debut in the title role of Luisa Miller as well as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte.
In between these engagements, from October to January, Nicole will make her debut The Royal Opera in London. She dazzled Sydney audiences when she sang as Tatyana in Kaspar Holten’s realisation of Eugene Onegin in 2014. Now she travels to the ‘house’ where Holten is Director of Opera to reprise the role in stellar company with Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Onegin, Michael Fabiano (seen here in Faust) as Lensky and Ferruccio Furlanetto (seen here as King Philip in Don Carlo) as Gremin. Before that though, Nicole will sing Micaela in six performances of Bizet’s Carmen, directed by in Francesca Zambello a role she sang for Opera Australia in 2011 and again in Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour in 2013. She will perform the role alongside Elena Maximova as Carmen, Bryan Hymel as Don José and Alexander Vinogradov as Escamillo with Bertrand de Billy conducting.
Nicole has also performed Tatyana for Deutsche Oper in 2015.
As well as her blossoming stage career, Nicole has recorded Brahm’s Deutsches Requiem for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes (ABC Classics), as featured artist on Rule Britannia! for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (ABC Classics) and as Micaela in Carmen for Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour (CD/DVD – Opera Australia). A major recital recording is planned with ABC Classics for release in 2016. The album will include the arias with which Nicole has made her name, including the ‘Letter Scene’ from Eugene Onegin and Je dis que rien ne m’epouvante from Carmen, alongside little known gems by Smetana and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Nicole Car is one of the most outstanding young Australian singers to emerge in recent years and a favourite with audiences. After completing her Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of Arts she made her debut as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Victorian Opera in 2009. She was a member of Opera Australia’s prestigious Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist Programme and was nominated for Best Young Singer in the International Opera Awards earlier this year. She has won several prestigious awards including the 2007 Herald-Sun Aria, the ASC Opera Awards in 2012 and the international Neue Stimmen competition in 2013.
