ABOUT
As a Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finalist, soprano Natalie Image was praised by the New York Times for her “pristine high notes” and by Operawire for her “crystalline tone [which] swirled through the house.” Her singing has also been described as “crisp [and] buoyant” with “sparkling coloratura and vocal cascades” by the San Francisco Chronicle.
At the beginning of 2024 Image made her German debut singing Echo in the award-winning production of Ariadne auf Naxos with the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar. She will also perform Fee Amaryllis in Räuber Hotzenplotz and Nella in Gianni Schicchi.
In 2023 Image debuted as Zerlina in Don Giovanni with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and, in Honolulu, made her debut as Adina in The Elixir of Love with Hawaii Opera Theatre. In 2022 she sang in Vancouver Opera’s first Opera in the Park, made her Montréal debut in Salle Bourgie as part of the Concours Musical International de Montréal, and her Dublin, Ireland debut with the Veronica Dunne International Competition. As an Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera (SFO), Image performed the roles of Frasquita (Carmen), First Wood Nymph (Rusalka), Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro) and the Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel). She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2019 singing excerpts from Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella, and has performed with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra singing Galatea (Acis and Galatea) and Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Villa-Lobos, with the Victoria Symphony in concert, and, in SFO’s Opera in the Park and The Future is Now concerts featuring the Adler Fellows.
Other past highlights include: Cinderella in Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella with Opera San Jose as part of its North American premiere under the baton of Jane Glover; Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with the Merola Opera Program; Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) orchestra; Aurore in Massenet’s Le portrait de Manon (SFCM); Handel’s Messiah with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist; and Johanna in Sweeney Todd (Opera on the Avalon)
Image completed her Masters degree at SFCM and her undergraduate studies in Toronto, Canada. Image is from Tsawwassen, Canada, but grew up on an orchard in the small town of Osoyoos, Canada. She began singing art songs at the age of 8, and has not looked back since!