EmilySierra

/
  • Mezzo-Soprano

About Emily

Emily Sierra, lauded for her "marked lyricism,...rare quality of timbre, [and] ...suave voice", is a Cuban-American mezzo-soprano currently singing in the Ensemble of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Sierra began her European career in the Opera Studio of the Bayerische Staatsoper, after having been awarded the Opera Foundation Scholarship for the 2021/22 season. Roles in the 2023/24 season include: Idamante (Idomeneo), Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Clotilde (Norma), La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi), Dritte Magd (Elektra), and Fyodor (Boris Godunov). She also makes her main stage US debut as Stéphano (Roméo et Juliette) at Dallas Opera.

Having had a hugely successful first year, Sierra notably performed Dryade (Ariadne auf Naxos), Nanni (L'infedeltà delusa), Hécube (Les Troyens), Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), and Annina (La Traviata). In the 2022/23 season, Sierra completed her second year of the Opera Studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper, performing roles through the year including Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Second Maid (Elektra), Un musico (Manon Lescaut), Soeur Mathilde (Dialogues des Carmelites), and Chambermaid of the Bolkonskis (Best New Production 2023 War and Peace).

Sierra is an alumna of The Juilliard School and the Royal College of Music. She was recently a Finalist of the Operalia competition, having taken place at Latvian National Opera in October 2022, and a Grand Finals Winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, newly renamed the Eric and Dominique Laffont competition, being awarded the Noreen Zimmerman Award. During her undergraduate career at the Royal College of Music, Sierra was recipient of the 2019 President’s Award. In the summer of 2021, Sierra joined the prestigious Vocal Residency of the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, alongside performances in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz in conjunction with the renowned Internationale Meistersinger Akademie summer program of 2021.

Other operatic highlights include her debut with English National Opera in the Theatre Royal Stratford East production as a Gossip in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde and as the title role in Juilliard's 2021 production of Handel's Teseo. On the concert platform, Sierra has performed as alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall, and Cloride in Handel’s Parnasso in festa at Wigmore Hall with the London Handel Festival. She has also appeared at Boston’s Symphony Hall and Curtiss Hall in Chicago.

Emily is based in Munich

Download programme biography   

Contact

For availability and general enquiries

Angelica Conner

Angelica Conner

Senior Artist Manager
Charlotte Bateman

Charlotte Bateman

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

Follow Emily

Season Highlights

Jun 2025
Opéra de Toulon
Norma (Adalgisa)
Jul 2025
Bayerische Staatsoper
Kát'a Kabanová (Varvara)
Oct 2025
Semperoper Dresden
Roméo et Juliette (Stéphano)
Dec 2025
Bayerische Staatsoper
Hänsel und Gretel (Hänsel)
Feb 2026
Bayerische Staatsoper
Faust (Siébel)
May 2026
Bayerische Staatsoper
Norma (Adalgisa)
Jun 2026
Bayerische Staatsoper
Carmen (Mercédès)
Jul 2026
Bayerische Staatsoper
La Cenerentola (Tisbe)

Video

Photos

Selected Repertoire

Bizet

Carmen (Mercédés)

Handel

Parnasso in festa (Cloride)   •   Teseo (title role)

Humperdinck

Hänsel und Gretel (Hänsel)

Mozart

Idomeneo (Idamante)

Puccini

Madama Butterfly (Kate Pinkerton)   •   Manon Lescaut (Un musico)

Strauss

Ariadne auf Naxos (Dryade)   •   Elektra (Zweite Magd)

Verdi

La traviata (Annina)

News

Press

  • BELLINI - Norma (Adalgisa)

    Opéra de Toulon
    Jun 2025

    • Emily Sierra's Adalgisa plays in a court won by breath and length, in a musical construction of honey and bruised sweetness. She absorbs and prolongs the feeling in a serene argument to implacable causality, an absolute counter-power to which she holds brilliantly throughout the entire performance.

    • In the role of Adalgisa, Cuban-American mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra offers her warm and very expressive voice, with powerful high notes and resonant low notes. Her vocal mastery even allows her to sing lying on her back and on her side while she is seduced by Pollione. Her performance, very invested and dramatic, clearly expresses her turmoil at the idea of ​​betraying her vows of chastity. In her duet with Norma , the two singers establish a sincere complicity, both vocally and on stage.

    • [Salome Jicia (Norma)] delivers a very high-flying performance: the drawn-out notes, and even more so the finesse of the attacks, are admirable. Her Adalgisa (a very moving Emily Sierra) evolves on the same peaks. The two women's long duets are suspended moments where, in the light of their alliance against the male invader, the two singers seem to entrust their respective art to each other.

    • Adalgisa, Emily Sierra , is no less expressive or painful. The young virgin that Norma protects has the grace, the candor, and, above all, the substance of the role. The voice is ample, seductive, the high notes as delicious as the low notes of the trio that closes the I, never chesty, the legato superb, the breath long, and we find ourselves regretting that the work reserves neither aria, nor cavatina, nor romanza for her. Her opening story, Sgombra è la sacra selva , followed by the arioso Deh proteggini o Dio , impose the character, embodied with precision. If the first duet with Norma, ideally balanced, goes beyond pure vocal virtuosity for intense expression, the second is of exceptional beauty and captivates us with its masterful progression ( Si, fino all'ore estreme in particular).

  • MOZART - Idomeneo (Idamante)

    Theater an der Wien
    Oct 2024

    • The Chicago-born Cuban-American mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra, who is driven to despair by her father Idomeneo's rejection and is in danger of breaking down, was a hit in the trouser role of Idamante.

  • MOZART - Idomeneo (Idamante)

    Bayerische Staatsoper
    Sep 2023

    • Impetuously passionate and radiantly warm: Emily Sierra and Emily Pogorelc form a dream couple in Mozart’s “Idomeneo” at the National Theater.

    • It is the two roles of mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra as Idamante and American soprano Emily Pogorelc as Ilia that catch the attention of regulars on the Munich stage… Mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra sings her first major role as a member of the Munich troupe, after training at the Opera Studio. A role supported by good technique, a seductive timbre and a nuanced lyricism in the expression of emotional variations.

  • HAYDN - L'infedeltà delusa (Nanni)

    Bayerische Staatsope
    Apr 2022

    • Finally, mezzo Emily Sierra is Nanni, a difficult role in the context of the production where she has a lot to invent in this new transvestite character. Not that modifications of this type were rare in the 18th century, but she also had to create a new character. As always with American singers, the technique and control are impeccable, and for Emily Sierra, we hear a marked lyricism, a rare quality of timbre, a suave voice that will also have to be followed with attention in other roles

  • HANDEL - Parnasso in festa (Cloride)

    Wigmore Hall
    Mar 2020

    • For alto Emily Sierra (as Clori) I noted during her aria (‘Tra sentier di amane selve’) that she was highly competent and sang beautifully

    • Emily Sierra’s one aria as Clori, extolling the hunt, was nimble and eloquent...

Discography