SOPRANO
ABOUT
Canadian-Italian soprano Aviva Fortunata opens her 2026/27 season as the soprano soloist in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Canadian Opera Company, honouring their twenty-year anniversary at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. She makes her company debut with the Brooklyn Art Song Society performing Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder, followed by a return to Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore with the Sacramento Philharmonic & Orchestra. In 2027, she appears as Gerhilde in Die Walküre with the Osterfestspiele Salzburg and the Berliner Philharmoniker, before returning to Canada in the title role of Opéra de Québec's Tosca.
Recent operatic highlights include Elettra in Idomeneo with both Boston Baroque and Washington Concert Opera, where her performances were praised for their “power, emotion, ravishing coloratura” and “effortless high notes" which "brought down the house" in "the standout moment of the evening."She returned to Sarasota Opera as Leonora in Il Trovatore, following previous appearances with the company as Elvira in Ernani, Lina in Stiffelio, and the title role of Luisa Miller. Other debuts of note include the title role of Norma with The Dallas Opera and Sieglinde in Die Walküre with Pacific Opera Victoria.
Ms. Fortunata’s repertoire includes Suor Angelica, Leonore Fidelio, Giorgetta Il Tabarro, Desdemona Otello, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte, Helmwige Die Walküre, Gutrune and Third Norn Götterdämmerung, and First Lady Die Zauberflöte. She has been engaged in these roles with The Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Canadian Opera Company, Calgary Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, and others.
In concert, Ms. Fortunata performed Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder and Wagner's Lohengrin with the Victoria Symphony under Christian Kluxen and made her debut with l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec singing works by Beethoven, Strauss, and Bellini. Ms. Fortunata has performed Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with Kitchener's Grand Philharmonic Choir and Rossini's Stabat Mater with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Her recital work with the Canadian Opera Company has included Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi and Britten’s Ekho poeta, with further concert appearances with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Chorus Niagara, and the Buffalo Philharmonic.
Ms. Fortunata is a former member of the ensemble at Deutsche Oper Berlin and an alumna of the Merola Opera Program and the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. She was a finalist in Operalia, The World Opera Competition, and represented Canada in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, where she was a Song Prize Finalist. She holds a Master of Music in Opera from the University of Toronto.