Australian soprano Eleanor Greenwood recently won the 2023 Opera Awards hosted by MOST. She is now about to make her role debut as Elisabetta in Donizetti’s opera Maria Stuarda for Melbourne Opera, playing opposite Helena Dix who performs the title role. She spoke to Limelight about her unfolding career, her ambitions and singing bel canto.

You started out as a mezzo-soprano. When and why did you make the decision to become a soprano?

I went to Germany for a while after I won the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship. While I was there, agents and coaches told me they thought I would be interesting as a soprano, in particular repertoire. It took me a long time to accept this might be a real possibility, and for me to consider the idea of changing my voice type, as it would mean starting again after so many years of dedicated study and training. After I had consistent feedback of this kind, I eventually decided to try the repertoire and found that it was not very different in range to what I was already singing as a mezzo-soprano. It was actually quite comfortable, though...