Italian-Canadian mezzo-soprano Simona Genga possesses an "exceptional and rare voice" known for its "vocal plushness, amplitude and range which are mature beyond her years" (Ludwig van Toronto/Opera Canada). Upcoming, Genga looks forward to her company and role debuts with both Pacific Opera Victoria and Calgary Opera, singing Azucena in Verdi’s Il trovatore, and Emilia in Verdi’s Otello, respectively. Additionally, she debuts as Zerlina in Teatro Nuovo’s historic production of Mozart’s Il Don Giovanni as a part of their 2026 summer season.

In the 2025/2026 season, Simona returned to the Canadian Opera Company as Giovanna in Verdi’s Rigoletto, as well as to cover Judith in the Robert Lepage production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. She also enjoyed engagements with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Handel’s Messiah), and Orchestra Toronto (Mahler’s Symphony No. 2). This past summer marked her Santa Fe Opera debut as Giovanna in Rigoletto, alongside additional cover assignments, as a part of their prestigious Apprentice Artist program.

On the concert stage, Genga has recently debuted Verdi’s Requiem (Chorus Niagara), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Brott Music Festival, Orchestre Philharmonique et Chœurs des Mélomanes), Handel’s Messiah (Victoria Symphony, Peterborough Singers), Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (Toronto Mendelssohn Choir), and joined the National Arts Centre Orchestra in their annual gala. She also appeared in recital with the Toronto Summer Music Festival.

Simona was a 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition National Semi-Finalist, after winning both the Great Lakes Region and Buffalo-Toronto District rounds, and the first prize winner of the 2025 International Luciano Pavarotti Foundation Competition with Opera Naples.

Additional operatic repertoire includes the title role of Carmen (Saskatoon Opera), Maddalena in Rigoletto (Canadian Opera Company), Rossweisse in Die Walküre (Santa Fe Opera), Frugola in Il Tabarro (Santa Fe Opera), Neris in Medea (COC), Olga in Eugene Onegin (Highlands Opera Studio), Gertrude in Hänsel und Gretel (COC), Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia (COC), Annina in La traviata (Opera Theatre of St. Louis), and Mrs. Grose in Britten’s Turn of the Screw (Chautauqua Opera). She has had the pleasure of singing under the batons of Speranza Scapucci, Lorenzo Passerini, Christopher Allen, Johannes Debus, Carlo Montanaro, and Robert Tweten, and working with directors Sir David McVicar, Christopher Alden, Patricia Racette, Julien Chavaz, Joan Font, James Robinson, Matthew Ozawa, and more.

No stranger to contemporary opera, Simona has sung Sister Helen Prejean in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (Nuova Vocal Arts), Mrs. Palladino in the world premiere of Cusson’s Fantasma (COC), and participated in workshops and productions of Ruo’s An American Soldier (OTSL), Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath (OTSL), Marshall’s Pomegranate (COC), and Cusson’s Empire of Wild (COC).

An alumna of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, Simona spent two summers with the program, with assignments including Gounod’s Faust (Dame Marthe), Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia (Maffio Orsini), Bellini’s Norma (Adalgsia), Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira), Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Magdalene), and Bianca in their production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. Appearing in recital for Metamorphosis: Recovery, Renewal, and Rebirth, Genga “had the audience in her grip from her first masterly measures to the last” (San Francisco Classical Voice). She was honoured to subsequently win the Schwabacher Recital Series prize, and appeared in recital at SFO in February 2024.

Simona has held fellowships with the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, The Chautauqua Institute, Highlands Opera Studio, and the Franz Schubert Institut in Baden bei Wein. She is also an alumna of Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ Gerdine Young Artist Program, and the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, after winning both First Prize and Audience Choice Awards at their 2017 Centre Stage Competition. A recipient of a 2019 Sullivan Foundation Career Development Grant, Simona has received career grants from the Hnatyshyn Foundation, the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation, the Ruby Mercer Awards, as well as the 2018 Barbara and Stanley Richman Award for demonstrating "exceptional potential for a significant career" at OTSL.

March 2026

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