Susan Elizabeth Brown

Canadian soprano Susan Elizabeth Brown has appeared in opera and concert throughout Canada with various ensembles.

In 2023, she appeared as Primera Sola Niña in Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov with Opéra de Montréal, where she previously covered the role of Erste Dame in Barry Kosky’s Komische Oper Berlin production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in 2022. In 2018, she appeared as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (Mozart) with Festival d’opéra de Québec, and on tour with Jeunesses Musicales Canada. She joined Jeunesses Musicales Canada again in 2020 in the title role of Lucia di lammermoor (Donizetti). Her technical capacity as a singer has allowed her to explore a wide range of operatic repertoire on professional stages, and she is most at home in light lyric roles, among which she has performed Adina (Elisir d’amore/Donizetti) Gilda (Rigoletto/Verdi), Giannetta (Elisir d’amore/Donizetti), Frasquita (Carmen/Bizet) Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier/Strauss) La Princesse (L’enfant et les sortileges/Ravel) Juliette (Roméo et Juliette/Gounod), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas/Purcell), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi/Puccini) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte/Mozart).

Highlights of her oratorio repertoire have included Messiah (Handel), Laudate Dominum (Handel), the Requiems of Brahms, Fauré, and Mozart, Carmina Burana (Orff), Stabat Mater (Pergolesi), Great Mass in C Minor (Mozart), and Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli and Theriesienmesse, among many others. Recent additions to her concert repertoire include Seven Early Songs by Alban Berg, the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 by Samuel Barber, and Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra by Osvaldo Golijov. She looks forward to the premiere of a new song cycle written for her by award-winning Canadian composer, Simon Bertrand. Susan is an alumnus of the National Arts Centre of Canada Young Artists Program, has a diploma in musical theatre performance from St. Lawrence college, and has studied classical singing exclusively in private studios, including those of acclaimed Canadian pedagogues and singers Nadia Izbitskya, Maria Pellegrini, Donna Brown, and Aline Kutan, among others incidentally. She is from Kingston, Ontario, and is currently based in Montreal, Quebec.