Aug 31, 2022

Meet the Artists: Andrea Lett and Adanya Dunn

ANDREA LETT

Clorinda

Andrea is no stranger to the Manitoba Opera stage. She last performed in The Sopranos of Winnipeg in November 2020, and prior to that was Bertha in April 2019’s smash hit The Barber of Seville.

The Saskatchewan-born, Winnipeg-based singer has worked with companies across North America including the San Francisco, Edmonton, and Sante Fe Operas, and made her Manitoba Opera debut in the 2018/19 season as Zerlina in Don Giovanni.

“There’s something really wonderful about being able to perform for people who I love, for an audience that I love, in a city that I love,” said Andrea in an interview last season on Classic Radio 107. “It feels like home on that stage.”

Praised for her “clear voice soaring to stratospheric heights” (Opera Canada), Andrea was also one of the featured performers in the acclaimed 2020 Against the Grain Theatre’s Messiah/Complex video project. She has also sung Musetta (La Bohème) for Saskatoon Opera and both Queen of the Night and Pamina in The Magic Flute for Manitoba Underground Opera.

Awards include the CBC Young Artist’s Development Prize, Audience Choice Award in the 2018 COC Center Stage Gala, and first prize in the 2018 Women’s Musical Club McLellan Competition.

Andrea Lett is a graduate of the Opera School at the University of Toronto (M. Mus Opera) and holds a B. Mus Perf from the University of Manitoba. Currently, she is a student in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba.

ADANYA DUNN

Tisbe

Canadian-Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Adanya Dunn is making her Manitoba Opera debut with this role. She made her American debut as Hermia in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Santa Fe Opera in 2021 as an Apprentice Artist and last season performed in concerts with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France and in Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Mallarmé and Mozart’s Requiem both in Paris and in Aix-en-Provence as part of the Festival de Pâques.

Adanya is a 2022 member of Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists. She is an alumna of Dawn Upshaw’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, Marilyn Horne’s Music Academy of West, the Rebanks Family Fellowship & International Residency at the Glenn Gould School, and the University of Toronto.

Named by the CBC as one of Canada’s “Top 30 Hot Classical Musicians Under 30,” the young mezzo was also featured in The Globe & Mail as one of six Canadian women who are “turning opera on its head and making the future bright for the art form.”

Adanya is a winner of the 2021 Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award, the 2020/21 recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Developing Artist Grant, Michigan Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions 2020, and a three-time grant recipient from the Canada Council for the Arts.

In addition to opera singing, Adanya composes classical and electronic music, writes poetry, paints watercolour, and practices pole dance, burlesque, contact dance, and dance improvisation. She is a 500hr yoga teacher and is currently completing a multi-year Alexander Technique based Yoga Teacher Training certification.

To learn more about Adanya, visit her website here.