Skip links

Heather Dials, soprano

Heather Dials began her professional career at the age of twelve as Flora in The Santa Fe Opera production of The Turn of the Screw. She was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, the youngest voice student accepted to date since Anna Moffo. Heather made her New York Alice Tully Hall debut at the age of twenty-one while still a student at the Curtis Institute of Music. She has shared the stage with many of today’s biggest names in opera, including Luciano Pavarotti, Juan Diego Flórez, Anna Netrebko, Eric Owens, and Stephanie Blythe to name a few. Heather has performed principal roles with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, San Francisco Opera, Skylight Opera Theater, European Opera Center International tour, San Francisco Opera’s Merola National Tour, San Francisco Symphony, Savannah Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, and New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. On the concert and opera stage, Heather has sung under the baton of conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Edo de Waart, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Maurizio Barbacini. She has received acclaim for her portrayal of operatic heroines, including Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mimi and Musetta in La Bohème, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Elizabeth in Tannhäuser, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, Marguerite in Faust, Gilda in Rigoletto, Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, about which Opera News wrote, “Ms. Dials was sublime in the slower, melancholy passages. Her last act lullaby was ravishing.” As Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, the Chicago Tribune remarked, “Taking all the high options in ‘Una voce poco fa,’ Dials delivered this tour de force with personal touches but without self-importance.” She has been heard in several live broadcasts for the Opera Company of Philadelphia and featured in the press by Opera America. Heather has won numerous awards and competitions including the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, first place in the Rosa Ponselle International Competition, and first place in the Mario Lanza Competition. She was a recipient of the Sullivan Foundation Career Grant and nominated for the prestigious Richard Tucker Career Grant.