If you’re one of the 160,000 people who follow Nadine Sierra on Instagram, you’d be forgiven for thinking that her life is just one big, glamorous fever dream. There are the Dior fittings in Paris, the cheerful vacation selfies, and the backstage shots from the Metropolitan Opera where she recently starred in a splashy new production of Bellini’s La sonnambula. The New York Times called her “vocally resplendent” in the role of the sleepwalking Amina, raving about her “fiery intensity” and “jubilant confidence”. It’s a career highpoint for a singer who has been in the spotlight ever since she won the Met’s National Council Auditions back in 2009, when her precocious talent was already clear. But when I speak with Sierra over Zoom after her last Sonnambula matinée, it’s clear that there’s an intelligence and self-awareness that goes deeper than the social media glitz. At 37, she’s at a career turning-point, and she’s ready to reclaim her narrative.
“You know, this production almost didn’t happen,” she tells me. “I was supposed to do this production at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in 2021, but there was a new wave of Covid. I was not only confined in Berlin just before Paris, but I was also dealing with getting sick and feeling unwell. I wanted to go home to be with my family, so I didn’t get to do Amina that time. I thought it would be my last chance.” At the time, Sierra was transitioning from the light lyric repertoire – roles like Mozart’s Susanna and Ilia, Strauss’ Sophie, Verdi’s Nannetta – and moving into roles like Violetta and Manon. “With the manager I had at the time, we were going back and forth with my repertoire. He really wanted to push me into heavier repertoire – way too soon in my opinion.”
Amina was written for Giuditta Pasta, whose richness and depth of voice has often led to comparisons with Maria Callas, who famously sang the role in 1955 with Leonard Bernstein conducting. But it’s a role more typically associated with high coloratura sopranos like Edita Gruberova or Natalie Dessay, who ornamented Bellini’s vocal line to show off their high notes. Sierra’s voice is darker and weightier than most sopranos who sing the role today, though she caps the heroine’s final cabaletta with a ringing high F. “When a second opportunity came up for me to sing the role, I felt I needed to do it. It was part of this bel canto tradition I hadn’t explored, and I worked really meticulously with Maurizio Benini on how to sing Bellini. I was really surprised by how much I liked the role. Amina really taught me something about myself.”
“I wasn’t aware that I could sing bel canto like that,” she explains. “I had done Lucia di Lammermoor, but I didn’t know how far down this repertoire path I could go. I guess I was allowing my ex-manager to convince me that I wouldn’t be able to sing bel canto as I got into my late thirties. He had this idea that women getting older meant that their high notes disappear: my range has definitely settled a bit lower and my voice is more mature-sounding, but I think the way he went about it felt a bit abusive. And I’m so happy that Amina proved him wrong, and also proved me wrong because I was very much doubting myself.”
Sierra sang Amina to great acclaim in Madrid in 2022 and Barcelona in 2025 in a production by director Bárbara Llluch. But even this Met run wasn’t without its drama. “This production was cancelled without my knowledge. I didn’t realize that my ex-manager had gone behind my back in 2023 to Peter Gelb [the Met’s General Director] to cancel it on my behalf. I just happened to have a meeting with Peter afterwards, which I’ll never forget. The first thing he said was ‘I’m so upset that you feel you can’t sing Amina any more and you’ve cancelled it!’ I was in shock. He immediately went to his desk and called [Met Artistic Administrator] Michael Heaston and a bunch of other people to get the production back, and then he sat back down, incredulous that this had happened. And I couldn’t believe it either.”
La sonnambula, despite containing some of Bellini’s loveliest music, is less often performed than some of his other operas due to its pastoral plot. The predecessor to Villazón’s production, by Mary Zimmerman, set the opera in a rehearsal studio; Villazón instead sets the story in the realm of Freud and Jung, allowing Amina to escape from the oppressiveness of a closed, patriarchal world. This includes her lover Elvino, portrayed here as jealous and inflexible; the revisionist ending has Amina emancipating herself from the control of her fiancé and her society. “There’s a lot of youth and innocence in Amina,” Sierra explains. “But it goes deeper than that. In the relationship that Amina has with Elvino, she has to handle his jealousy and lack of trust. You know, it’s a bit reflective of my experience, trying to hold onto Amina and trying to defy somebody who was supposed to have my best interests at heart. It’s an amazing full circle to have completed a production that was literally cancelled on my behalf.”
Sierra has been in the spotlight for over a decade. How does she manage the pressure from management, opera houses and fans? “I’ve learned a lot,” she tells me. “No matter what anyone tells you, you have to be strong for yourself. Not just being your own cheerleader, but also being an honest critic and telling yourself ‘You know what? We could do this better. Let’s try.’ We need to listen to our inner voice, not just the voice that wants to stroke our ego, but also the one that tells us the truth. And I think, thanks to that, I’ve been able to attain a level of singing and performing that I didn’t have a few years ago.”
And what of social media? “Social media can open up a whole can of worms when it comes to the ratio between showing the professional and personal sides of your life. I probably now show a lot more of the professional, but there’s no way I can just show the career because I am also my career, you know? I think my Instagram has evolved: I remember I used to try and teach, but it’s such a personal thing when it comes to the voice. Now, my posts get a hundred, two hundred thousand views and I never want to be responsible for giving misinformation. But when young singers message me, I do answer. If it’s a technique question I just lead them to my instructors Kamal Khan and César Ulloa, who I’ve known since I was 13 years old!”
Sierra starred in Katie Mitchell’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor in 2024, in a feminist reimagining of the work. Mitchell recently announced her withdrawal from the opera world, citing persistent and systemic misogyny in the industry. “I’ve had a lot of experiences that were challenging and even upsetting,” Sierra tells me. “I’ve had to learn a lot of things, maybe harshly, but I’ve definitely learned a lot going through the industry. And it’s shaped my artistry as well. I’ve been singing roles like Gilda and Violetta for a long time, and they have of course evolved with my voice. But they’ve also been a reflection into how I’ve grown up in the industry, because I always adopt bits of my life and experience into these parts. I’ve never been a courtesan, and I’ve never been locked up in a house by my father, but I can relate to the things these women are going through emotionally: the feelings of being abandoned, of being abused, of being oppressed. So I think over time, becoming a more mature version of myself allows me to dive into the intricacies of these characters. You know, sometimes getting older really sucks,” she adds, “especially as a woman in this industry. But in some ways I’m so happy that I’m older because I understand things I didn’t fully get before.”
Sierra also headlined the Met’s new Lucia back in 2022, set by Australian director Simon Stone in the American Rust Belt. Bel canto operas, with their sometimes-thin plots, are particularly subject to reinterpretation. “It can be nice if it’s reimagined,” Sierra muses, “but at the same time it always has to be honest. Especially with bel canto, the audience wants to hear miraculous singing. If the singing is not totally compelling, it’s easy for a production to distract from that. Peter Gelb has asked me to do that production again and there is a part of me that would love to, because I’d love to brush up vocally and musically on things that I didn’t have in my toolbox at the time.”
She’s full of praise for Stone’s production of La traviata, which casts Violetta as a contemporary influencer. “I loved that production,” she enthuses. “I felt like I had all the vocal and musical tools at my disposal to confront the modernization of the story. It’s such an intricate and detail-oriented production, and so technological, that it can eat you up. It’s like a beautiful dress: sometimes a dress is so ornate and embellished that you don’t notice the person wearing it any more. A singer has to be able to wear the production, and not the other way around!”
Sierra makes her stage debut as Luisa Miller next February in Vienna, after performing the opera in concert last season in Naples. “It’s definitely a step up,” she says, “but at this point I feel like I’m ready to meet that challenge. Singing it in concert was very helpful because it allowed me to break the ice, and in Vienna it’s a new production with lots of rehearsal which is the only reason I would say yes to doing it!” She’s taken a slow-but-steady approach to expanding her repertoire. “I’m very conservative with my repertoire. My inspirations are people like Mirella Freni or Mariella Devia, who sang the same roles over and over again throughout their career and kept the longevity of their voice. It’s the same thing with dropping repertoire — I drop roles when I can’t handle the stress any more. Both the vocal stress of the higher tessitura, and the mental stress of singing those roles. For me, singing should largely sound effortless. No pushing, no screaming and no sacrificing the beauty of the sound.”
So how does she know when to take on a new role? “I’m my own guinea pig with this – I’m living in my own body and I’ll see if something is the right fit. But my general approach is that if something gives me nightmares, it’s probably not the right fit for right now!” Sierra’s approach to new repertoire is careful and systematic. “After this Sonnambula a lot of people have asked me about Norma, but we’ll see,” she explains. “I’m going to do Maria Stuarda first, and see how that goes. If that works, I’ll try Anna Bolena. It’s the same thing with Verdi: Luisa Miller is the first step, and if that feels good I’ll look at the Trovatore Leonora and Desdemona. And in the French rep, Thaïs is definitely a dream role that seems realistic.”
But Sierra’s first love was Puccini. “His music just really captured me from the beginning. Mimì is a definite dream role, but in a few years. I listen a lot to Freni, and there’s this juiciness in her voice that I’d love to explore in my voice as well. And on the other hand we have Renata Scotto, who was so adventurous. There’s that video of Scotto doing Manon Lescaut at the Met, and I don’t know whether it’s because of the role or because of Scotto, but it’s like cocaine for me. I need to know what that high feels like. I want to know what it’s like to completely abandon oneself onstage with roles like Manon Lescaut or Tosca, just having everyone believe in that moment that the world has just stopped. Just for that moment, you know. God, that sounds so cool!”
