Adrianne Pieczonka

In 2019 she was appointed the first Vocal Chair at the Glenn Gould School, where she gives regular masterclasses, and oversees the vocal department and their opera productions.

In 2014 she received the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation. She has received Honorary Doctorates from McMaster University, Hamilton and from her alma mater, University of Western Ontario. She received a Ruby Award from Opera Canada in 2015. She is a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada as well as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Her album Adrianne Pieczonka Sings Wagner and Strauss was nominated for Classical Album of the Year - Vocal or Choral Performance at the 2007 Juno Awards. In 2010 she won a Juno Award for best vocal album of the year for her CD Adrianne Pieczonka sings Puccini, on the Orfeo label.

In March 2007, Pieczonka was invested as an Austrian Kammersängerin. She, along with tenor Michael Schade, are the first two Canadian singers to have had this honour. In 2008, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2012, she was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2004 as Lisa in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades. At the MET she has also performed Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Amelia (Simon Boccanegra), Chrysothemis (Elektra), Leonore (Fidelio) and Madame Lidoine (Dialogues des Carmélites). Adrianne Pieczonka has performed with the world's leading opera companies for over three decades. Some of these include the Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Zurich Opera, Teatro Real, Liceu, Teatro Arriaga, Paris Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Los Angeles Opera, Teatro Colón, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, along with many others. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in 2001 singing a concert version of Lohengrin and has since sung Elisabetta, The Marschallin and Leonore at this prestigious festival. She made her Bayreuth Festival debut in 2006, singing Sieglinde in Die Walküre and was hailed by Die Zeit as "The Sieglinde of our time" She returned to Bayreuth to sing Senta in The Flying Dutchman in 2012.

She moved to London, England in 1995, and made her British debut at Glyndebourne as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, returning there for Arabella in 1996. She made her debut at the Royal Opera House as Donna Anna in 2002. Pieczonka moved back to Toronto, Canada in 2005 and performed regularly with the Canadian Opera Company. Her roles over many years have included Mimi (La bohème), Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Leonore (Fidelio), the title role in Tosca, and Amelia (Un ballo in maschera). She was awarded a Dora Award for her outstanding portrayal of Sieglinde in the 2004 production of Die Walküre.

She became a member of the Vienna Volksoper in 1989 where her roles included Countess Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Laura (Der Bettelstudent) and Tatyana (Eugene Onegin). In 1991 she became a member of the Vienna State Opera where her roles included Desdemona (Otello), Antonia (The Tales of Hoffmann), Micaëla (Carmen), Die Tochter (Cardillac), Agathe (Der Freischütz), Countess Almaviva, Donna Elvira and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes), Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), title role in Arabella, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, and The Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier).

Pieczonka was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and grew up in Burlington, Ontario, Canada and graduated from the Opera School of the University of Toronto in 1988. She also graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1985. She made her professional stage debut with the Canadian Opera Company in 1988 singing The Female Prisoner in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtensk. She moved to Europe in 1988 and quickly won first prize at the International Vocal Competition 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands as well as First Prize at the International Singing Competition in La Plaine sur Mer, France, also in 1988.

Adrianne Pieczonka, OC (/ˈ eɪ d r iː ə n p j ɛ ˈ tʃ ɔː n k ə / AY -dree-ən pyeh-CHAWN -kə; born March 2, 1963) is a Canadian operatic soprano singer.