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Nadine Sierra is a 34-year-old acclaimed Latina soprano that has performed in the world’s top opera houses. Fourteen years ago, she made HERStory when she became the youngest singer to win the Metropolitan Opera’s vocal competition.
The Florida native is considered a prodigy, and her love for opera began when she was 6 years old after seeing a VHS tape of “La Boheme,” as reported by NBC News.
Sierra of Puerto Rican, Italian and Portuguese roots said her abuela was also why she became an opera singer. “My grandma, she had wanted to become an opera singer. She had a beautiful voice. Her father, my great-grandfather, did not want her to have any kind of working job because she was a woman, and a woman’s job was to be a housewife, have children, and that was it,“ Sierra told Noticias Telemundo.
Sierra recently played Lucia in the opera “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, alongside Mexican tenor Javier Camarena. “The role of Lucia is very famous for how vocally challenging it is,“ Sierra said. ”Lucia, she almost never leaves the stage. ... It’s the most physical production I’ve ever had to do and the most theatrical.“ Adding, “there’s a movie screen above the action and people can see our faces, our expressions.”
“You get to see why Lucia really loses her mind and how these men in her life are really controlling her, her world, and turning her world completely inside out,” she said. “I can absolutely identify with parts of Lucia’s life. I’ve had to deal with certain male figures in my life who were very abusive, especially emotionally abusive, like with Lucia.”
Sierra told Noticias Telemundo that there is something she thinks should change in the world of opera. “ I think people who love opera and want to stick to all of the traditional things about opera should try to be a little bit more open-minded. ... I mean talking like on the internet,” she says.
“If you keep influencing the young generation online with only negativity, how do you think that generation is even going to give opera a chance?” she asks. “It’s not progressive at all. It’s so stuck in the past. It almost makes me sick; I have to say.”