Miriam Khalil
Miriam Khalil is an acclaimed Lebanese-Canadian soprano specializing in opera and concert performance. She has been lauded as a “skilled, versatile artist” with a “signature warm lyrical voice” by Musical Toronto, described as “dark, dangerous and alluring” by Opera Going Toronto, and praised for “making her fine soprano express every emotion with exactness and feeling” by The Globe and Mail.
Miriam is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, the Steans Institute for Young Artists (Ravinia) and the Britten-Bears Young Artist Programme in England. While in her last year of the COC Ensemble Studio, she advanced to the semifinals of the Metropolitan Opera Council auditions and represented the Great Lakes Region on the Met stage, during which she was featured in the documentary film The Audition. She is a recipient of multiple awards and grants from the George London Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Scholarships.
Miriam has appeared on numerous opera stages across Canada and Europe, including a stint at the renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the United Kingdom. Notable roles include Mimì in La bohème (Minnesota Opera, Opera Hamilton and Against the Grain Theatre); Musetta in La bohème (Edmonton Opera); Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera Tampa and Against the Grain Theatre/The Banff Centre/Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival); Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande (Against the Grain Theatre); the Governess in The Turn of the Screw (Against the Grain Theatre); Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, U.K.); Almirena in Rinaldo (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, U.K.); and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (Pacific Opera Victoria, Opera Lyra Ottawa and Against the Grain Theatre).
Equally at home on the concert stage, Miriam has been a frequent recitalist in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. She has performed oratorios, song cycles, and opera galas with orchestras across Canada including Symphony Nova Scotia, Victoria Symphony, Thunder Bay Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Thunder Bay Symphony, and Sudbury Symphony.
She is a proud founding member of the Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning chamber opera company Against the Grain Theatre (AtG). With vision and dedication, AtG explores different and innovative ways of presenting opera to new and familiar audiences. Miriam is delighted to help shape “one of the most important opera companies in Canada” (Calgary Herald).
This season Miriam looks forward to making her Minnesota Opera debut as Mimì, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Edmonton Opera, Dido in Dido and Aeneas with Toronto Masque Theatre, and returning to the concert stages of Victoria Symphony in Handel’s Messiah, and Thunder Bay Symphony’s “A Night at the Opera.” She will also be singing Golijov’s haunting song cycle Ayre with Against the Grain Theatre following her highly acclaimed performances of the same work at the Banff Centre and Ottawa International Chamber Festival. Upcoming engagements include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Edmonton Opera, and Golijov’s acclaimed song cycle Ayre, in Rockport, Maine.
