Park Extension

Heralded for her “clear vibrant tone” (Opera Canada) and her “good comedic acting…with [a] powerful, agile voice” (Burnaby Now), Tamar Simon is an Armenian-Canadian soprano embarking on a promising opera career. Her recent credits include Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Musetta (La bohème). and Zerlina. Don Giovanni). She re-appeared in Don Giovanni with Highlands Opera Studio this summer singing the role of Donna Elvira. A frequent performer around Vancouver, Canada, Tamar was featured as the soprano soloist for the Vancouver Opera Festival’s New Works Project and has performed outreach concerts for Vancouver Opera. She appeared as Valencienne with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in their Look of Love concert, a role she reprised with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra in their concert of Viennese Delights. She has also been engaged with Burnaby Lyric Opera as Rosina in their mainstage production of Il barbiere di Siviglia and as Adina in their concert production of L’elisir d’amore, and performed with White Rock Concerts as Musetta in their production of La Bohème.

Tamar has been seen international stages, including appearances as Zerlina in Hawaii Performing Arts Festival’s production of Don Giovanni and as Calisto in Centre for Opera Studies’ production of La Calisto. Tamar continued her vocal and art song studies in Austria after receiving the Johann Strauss Foundation Scholarship, which sponsored study at the Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum under soprano Helen Donath and baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. She has also traveled to Pilzen, Czech Republic and Nürnberg, Germany performing excerpts from La Traviata, La Bohème, and Die Fledermaus. Additionally, she sang in Hong Kong and Beijing as part of the UBC Centennial Tour, performing excerpts from Don Pasquale and Les contes d’Hoffmann. Tamar is a District Winner and an Encouragement Award Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She is a graduate of University of British Columbia’s Master of Music program in opera performance where she studied under Patrick Raftery and Nancy Hermiston. At UBC, she performed many leading roles, most notably the role of Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro where she was described as “believable and engaging Susanna, passing from innocence to subtlety to assertion, always in control and always the unrecognized protagonist” (Opera Canada). She was also seen as Tytania in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ciboletta in Eine Nacht in Venedig, and The Foreign Woman in The Consul.