Praised by Opera News for her “impassioned singing”, Polish-American coloratura soprano Alexandra Nowakowski made her Ópera de Oviedo debut this past season as the title role in Manon. This season, she will perform Gilda in Rigoletto with Opera de Oviedo and cover the same role with both LA Opera and the Metropolitan Opera.  She will also cover Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with the Metropolitan Opera, and will tour in Spain singing the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute.

 

With the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Nowakowski has recently covered Voce dal Cielo in Don Carlo, Barbara/Mrs. Latch in the world premiere of The Hours (Puts/Pierce), and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. In 2021-2022, Ms. Nowakowski joined the roster of The Metropolitan Opera covering Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and Gilda in Rigoletto. Other operatic credits include two runs as the Queen of the Night with the Opera Popular de Barcelona, and several roles with Wolf Trap Opera including Johanna in Sweeney Todd, La Fée in Viardot’s Cendrillon, Due Donne and cover of Susanna, and a critically acclaimed performance as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, for which Washington Classical Review writes: “[she] brought strength and sincerity” and “finessed the coloratura demands of the aria ‘Grossmächtige Prinzessin’ with panache and airy nuance, as refreshing as a gin fizz.” As a Cafritz Young Artist at the Washington National Opera, Ms. Nowakowski performed Papagena and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Anna Gomez in The Consul staged by Francesca Zambello, and scenes as Nannetta in Falstaff and Clorinda in La Cenerentola with the WNO Orchestra. 

 

In recital this season, Ms. Nowakowski will present a mixed repertoire program for the Conciertos en la Cuevona de Ardines series. Ms. Nowakowski most recently appeared in recital with Polish pianist Michał Biel at venues including the Palau de la Música, the Lied Festival Life Victoria, and Carnegie Hall’s Citywide Concert Series; Francesco Cholbi for the Sociedad de Conciertos de Alicante; and Luke Housner with Astral Artists. Other recitals include Palau de la Musica in Barcelona as a finalist of the El Primer Palau competition and a recital for Ukraine for the Embassy Series in DC, for the Sembrich Museum, and at the Phillips Collection. She also appeared with Brooklyn Art Song Society across several seasons, performing repertoire including Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, Op. 127 and From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79. Ms. Nowakowski is  a recipient of the Beebe Fund fellowship, where she spent a season in Poland researching Polish music for her new album of Polish art song, “KRAINA (Homeland)”, available on streaming platforms through Lexicon Classics. 

 

In concert, the 2023-2024 season saw her as the featured soprano soloist in a concert series with the Orquestra El Miracle in Catalunya, featured on Catalan radio & television. Ms. Nowakowski’s repertoire includes Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate (Symphony in C, the Artosphere Festival), Mozart’s Requiem (Columbus Symphony), Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (Symphony in C), Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music (New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall), Bach’s B Minor Mass (Bach Society Houston), and Carmina Burana (Philadelphia Youth Orchestra). She made her Polish debut in a New Year’s Eve Gala with the Opera Bałtycka in Gdańsk, Poland, and has sung a NYE Concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra. No stranger to medici.tv, Ms. Nowakowski’s performances have been broadcast as Gilda in a concert version of Rigoletto with the Verbier Festival, in Joyce DiDonato’s Masterclass at Carnegie Hall, and as a semi-finalist for the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup. 

 

Ms. Nowakowski was recently awarded First Prize in the Opera Columbus Cooper-Bing Competition, the Partners for the Arts Competition, the Marcella Sembrich International Voice Competition with the Kosciuszko Foundation, and is a winner of the 2019 Astral National Auditions. She is a First Prize winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition, the Vocal Arts DC Art Song Discovery Competition, and the Violetta DuPont Competition, and won Second Prize in the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, the Gerda Lissner Lieder/Song Competition, FAVA’s Grand Concours de Chant, and the Dorothy-Lincoln Smith Voice Competition. She has garnered awards from the Loren L. Zachary Society Vocal Competition and the Giulio Gari Foundation Competition, and was a 2020 Second Place Winner from the Middle Atlantic Region of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.

 

As a candidate for her Artist Diploma at the Academy of Vocal Arts, Ms. Nowakowski sang Zerbinetta and Najade in Ariadne auf Naxos, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Gilda in Rigoletto, Sophie in Werther, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, and Musetta in La bohème. Other roles include Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel with the Philadelphia Sinfonia and Dido in Dido and Aeneas with the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana.

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Ms. Nowakowski holds an Artist Diploma from AVA and a bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.