Wallis Giunta

Irish-Canadian mezzo, Wallis Giunta, is the 2018 International Opera Awards "Young Singer of the Year", and was named in 2018 both "Young Artist of the Year" by The Arts Desk and "Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera" in the What's On Stage Opera Awards. She has been praised by OPERA NEWS for her “delectably rich, silver-toned mezzo-soprano, with a beautiful sense of line and effortless, rapid runs”, with her performance as Mozart’s Sesto for the Canadian Opera Company celebrated as “a triumph…remarkable in its combination of intelligence and beauty”.

In the 23/24 season, Wallis will debut at Carnegie Hall in her signature role of Anna (Weill/Sieben Todsünden), with the Wiener Symphoniker in Beethoven's 9th Symphony, with Opéra de Lausanne as Dorabella, and at the Maison Symphonique in Montreal as Carmen. She will also star at the Vienna Volksoper as the title role in the Austrian premiere of The Gospel According to the Other Mary (Adams). Wallis joined the Volksoper ensemble in 22/23, and her repertoire there includes Cenerentola, Hänsel, Orlofsky and Cherubino. She also debuted in 2023 at the Komische Oper Berlin in concert with Maestro Brandon Keith Brown, at the Landestheater Linz as Cherubino, at the Staatstheater Darmstadt as the Gymnasiast in Berg's Lulu, and at the Opèra Comique in Paris reprising her role of Dodo in Breaking the Waves (Mazzoli).

Wallis's 21/22 season projects included debuts with Opéra national de Montpellier as Cenerentola, with the Philharmonia Baroque as Tigrane/Radamisto, with the Melk Baroque Festival as Purcell's Dido, with Leeds Lieder in recital and with The Dallas Opera as Rosina/Il Barbiere di Siviglia, along with her return to the BBC Proms Festival for Handel's Solomon at Royal Albert Hall, and in recital with guitarist Sean Shibe.

Wallis is the grateful recipient of the 2016 Bernard Diamant Prize and several major grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the 2013 Novick Career Advancement Grant, the 2013 Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Career Development Award, and multiple prizes from the George London Foundation. Wallis is a 2013 graduate of both the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program & the Juilliard School’s Artist Diploma in Opera Studies, and a 2011 graduate of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. She has also studied at The Glenn Gould School, the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute, the Aspen Music Festival & School and the International Meistersinger Akademie in Germany.

January 2024

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Dean Artists represents Wallis in Canada.

“...the mezzo-soprano doesn’t simply sing, she truly performs: every textual line is inhabited vocally, gesturally, physically, and the characters to which she gives voice, spirit and presence are immediately, viscerally and compelling ‘real’. Her tone – high, middle, or low – is simply gorgeous, though it was the full, flickering hues of the middle that I found most stunning…”

— Claire Seymour, Opera Today

“Giunta’s Idamante was the real surprise and joy of the evening for me. She combined tremendous acting as the youthful ruler surprised by love (Idamante’s love is enlivening; his forlorn despair droops off the stage) and her voice felt in moments of longing like it could stop time and pierce dimensions. By the third act, when Idamante draws up his courage and sings No, la morte io non pavento (I am not afraid of dying), I was sold”
S. Bear Bergman, Mooney on Theatre

“Wallis Giunta sang Cinderella with a beautiful and subtle tone production that seemed to grow in strength to the final scene, which shone with her brilliant passagework and confident high notes…[the Prince’s] scenes with Cinderella were tender and sensitive enough to make one believe in their ‘love at first sight.’”
Melinda Bargreen, The Seattle Times

“Canadian mezzo soprano Wallis Giunta is a star of the future who really lives her songs…painting vivid dramatic or psychological portraits with an operatic quality even in the more restrained world of Lieder. Two lullabies by Benjamin Britten were standouts and her one venture into opera from Ponchielli’s La Gioconda was predictably superb. She has a superb voice”

“Scottish Opera and Opera Ventures have assembled an impressive cast…mezzo Wallis Giunta as Bess’s loving sister-in-law Dodo…owns the stage both vocally and dramatically – one day, hopefully, someone will write a central role for her like Bess’s”
[Breaking the Waves, Scottish Opera ] David Nice, The Arts Desk

“The success of this opera lies squarely on the shoulders of the titular character of Cinderella and in this production, Wallis Giunta…is more than up for the challenge. Giunta has charm and charisma enough for 10 ingénues, but there is also a layer of strength and a sense of agency often missing from fairytale heroines. Her mezzo is effortlessly agile, her low notes are sumptuous and her high notes clear and vibrant."
[La Cenerentola, Seattle Opera] Molly Cassidy, Drama in the Hood

“Wallis Giunta, who has gone on to a successful career in Europe, wields a mezzo-soprano that has also matured. Her high, clear, agile voice has gained in body and expressivity...each of her arias is impressive, though perhaps the passionate [“Non ho colpa”] is the most outstanding for its combination of beauty and power.”
[Idomeneo, Opera Atelier] Christopher Hoile, Opera News

“Wallis Giunta was an outstanding Cherubino, conveying all the impetuousness of youth and giving heady, enraptured performances of both arias”
[Le nozze di Figaro, Grange Park Opera] Melanie Eskenazi, Music OMH

"Wallis Giunta is not only visually different from the usual Carmen cliché, with her red hair, but especially vocally, she is a completely different Carmen than you may be used to. Fresh, cheeky, self-confident and free in her interpretation (you could even say very cool and tough), with a bright, cleverly used, youthful mezzo timbre, without raspy chest tones and far from any matronly heaviness, she draws a tremendous, impressive role portrait and proves that a Carmen does not necessarily have to be a big, dramatic, vampish mezzo. Warm, yet focused in the middle voice, radiant and powerful in her high voice and incredibly versatile – this is what a modern Carmen sounds like!…Wallis Giunta’s debut is brilliantly successful and is applauded and cheered by the audience”
[Carmen, Oper Leipzig] Eva Hauk, KULTURA-EXTRA (original in German)

“but it is Giunta once more who holds the stage in a beautifully vulnerable portrayal of the naughty boy who learns to be kind. The Canadian mezzo is class personified."
[L’enfant et les sortilèges, Opera North] Mark Valencia, What’s On Stage