Soprano Gemma Nha is currently a first-year soprano at the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center. This season, she will be making her house debut as the Page in Rigoletto, reprising Barbarina, and performing the role of Jess and covering Ashley in Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners.
In the 23/24 season, Gemma made two role debuts with Juilliard Opera: Ruth Baldwin in John Musto and Mark Campbell’s Later the Same Evening and Flerida in Cavalli’s Erismena. She also debuted with the Albany Symphony at the Troy Saving Banks Music Hall, and at Carnegie Hall in May as a prize winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation Lieder/Song Competition. Gemma recently won First Prize at the 18th Seoul International Music Competition, being the first female to do so in the Voice cycle, and became a Nationalist Semifinalist of the 2024 Laffont Metropolitan Opera Competition.
In previous seasons, Gemma was an Apprentice Singer at Santa Fe Opera, and made her house and role debut as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro at the Volksoper Wien. Other operatic credits include: La Conversa I Suor Angelica (Juilliard Opera); Lauretta cover Gianni Schicchi (Juilliard Opera); Zerlina Don Giovanni (Schlosstheater Schönbrunn with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna mdw); and Gretel Hänsel und Gretel (PlusOpera). In concert, Gemma performed in Händel’s Dixit Dominus at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Messiah with the Fiori Musicali Chamber Choir, and Bach’s Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147 with the Tagkhanic Chorale under the baton of Maestro Jason Tramm.
In competitions, Gemma has seen success at both the Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal and Lieder/Song Competitions, the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation Bel Canto Award, the Marcella Sembrich International Voice Competition, the Esther and Myron Wilson Cedar Rapids Vocal Competition, and Sydney Eisteddfod, both in classical voice and musical theatre. Gemma was a 2020 finalist of the Lotte Lenya Competition and contributed to the Lotte Lenya Competition Songbook.
Gemma received her Bachelor of Arts Gesang with distinction from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under the tutelage of Peter Edelmann, and her Master of Music from the Juilliard School where she studied with Darrell Babidge as a Toulmin Scholar (2022-2023) and a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship (2023-2024).
