Rebecca cuddy

Métis multi-disciplinary artist and mezzo-soprano Rebecca Cuddy is acknowledged as ‘the next generation who are going to do incredible things’ (Newman, The Whole Note 2019). Rebecca is a two-time Dora Award nominated performer, named to CBC’s top classical 30 Under 30 List in 2021, who is quickly gaining recognition on Canadian operatic stages. This past season she made her Canadian Opera Company debut in Voices of Mountains, appeared in Soundstreams’ Garden of Vanished Pleasures and Encounters: Indigenous Voices, and Shatter with Toronto Concert Orchestra.

This season, Rebecca makes her Manitoba Opera main stage debut in the world premier of Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North. Previously, she joined Pacific Opera Victoria for their production of Braunfel’s Die Vögel (2023), and made her directorial debut and performed in Musique 3 Femmes’ digital release of The Chair. In concert, Rebecca made several appearances with Soundstreams, including the premiere of Frehner’s L.E.X., the New Orford String Quartet, the Toronto Consort, as well as a performance with members of the TSO and Yo Yo Ma in support of Toronto’s CAMH Centre. Rebecca is a Native Earth Performing Arts 40 Seeds for 40 Seasons grant recipient and was the a guest curator with the Harbourfront Festival for their 2023 summer season.  

Rebecca has sung in the premieres of several new Indigenous opera works across Turtle Island, including Two Odysseys; Pimootewin and Gállábártnit (Dora Award; Outstanding Ensemble), Shanawdithit (Dora Award; Outstanding New Opera), Flight of the Hummingbird and Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North.    

Opera credits include: Mercédès (Mercury Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria cover); Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte; Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti and Madame Popova in The Bear with Bloomsbury Opera; and Sesto in Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Accademia Europea dell’Opera.    

Rebecca has also embarked on the journey into stage direction and theatre creation. In this regard, in the 2022 season she was the inaugural artist for Canadian Opera Company’s Land Acknowledgement Commissioning Program and also created and premiered The Maydee Box for the Festival of Live Digital Art. She joined the Stratford Festival 2022 Langham Directors’ workshop and was Assistant Director under Alisa Palmer for the Festival’s Hamlet911 by Ann-Marie MacDonald. She returns to Stratford to direct an excerpt of The Flood by Leah Simone Bowen in November, 2022.   

Rebecca sits in council with the Canadian Opera Company Circle of Artists, the National Theatre School of Canada Indigenous Circle, Soundstreams and The Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance. She was the 2022 Indigenous Artist in Residence at the National Theatre School of Canada. Rebecca holds an MA in Opera and Voice Performance from the Royal Academy of Music and a BMus in Voice Performance from Western University.  

January 2024

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