Madison Nonoa

The New Zealand soprano Madison Nonoa studied on the prestigious opera course at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Yvonne Kenny. In 2019, the year of her graduation, she made her debut at Glyndebourne Festival as First Siren (Rinaldo). She is a graduate of the Jerwood Young Artist Programme at Glyndebourne (2020/21), the Samling Artist Programme (2020) and the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme (2021/22), and is a former Emerging Artist of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation at New Zealand Opera, where she made her debut in the role of Papagena (Die Zauberflöte).

Her operatic roles include Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Despina (Così fan tutte), Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Giulietta (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Almirena (Rinaldo), First Spirit (Cendrillon), Ciboulette in Offenbach’s Mesdames de la Halle, Ifigenia in Handel’s Oreste and Leonora in Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner.

In 2022 she made her debuts at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg as Maria (West Side Story) and at the London Handel Festival as Galatea (Acis and Galatea), returned to Glyndebourne as Papagena and sang Dido (Dido and Aeneas) at the Ustinov Studio of Theatre Royal Bath. She makes her Salzburg Festival debut at the 2023 Whitsun Festival as Amore (Orfeo ed Euridice).

Madison Nonoa has sung internationally in concert with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (with whom she recorded the CD Noël! Noël!) and performed with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. Her recent concert appearances include her Edinburgh International Festival debut in August 2022, Couperin’s Trois Leçons de Ténèbres with The King’s Consort, a tour of works by Lusitano with the ensemble Chineke! Voices, and appearances as a Britten Pears Young Artist with Bryn Terfel and at the Snape Maltings with Simon Keenlyside and Malcolm Martineau.

Her competition successes include first prizes at the Dame Malvina Major Aria Competition in Christchurch and Wellington, at the Napier Aria Competition and at the Tauranga Performing Arts Competitions, and second prize at the New Zealand Aria Competition. Madison Nonoa was a semi-finalist in the Bach Singers Prize of the London Bach Society and in the international Handel Singing Competition, and a finalist in the 2016 Lexus Song Quest, when she was awarded the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation scholarship as ‘Most Promising Singer’.