Lauren Fagan’s debut with Opera Australia just two years ago could have been considered more than overdue for a singer with her career trajectory. However, the Australian soprano, born and bred in Sydney, isn’t having any of that. “I can’t deny there was always a huge urge to come back,” she says, but adds, “You just have to believe things will happen at the right time.”

Her approach has borne fruit. “I’m very practical and realistic,” she told Limelight’s Editor-at-Large, Clive Paget, in an interview for an American publication in 2022. That attitude has led her steadily towards the work she knows suits her best and which she loves – roles such as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin that ask for her vocal character and dramatic gifts. It’s engrossing territory in which debuts have come thick and fast.

Lauren Fagan. Photo © Victoria Cadisch

Fagan studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama and, in 2014, won a place in the Royal Opera House Covent Garden’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme. After that came invitations from important European houses, among them Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Paris...