South Florida Classical Review

Photo: Merri Cyr

Soprano Nadine Sierra, a Fort Lauderdale native, is the winner of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award, one of the most prestigious vocal prizes in music.

The $50,000 award is given annually to an American singer on the threshold of a major international career. Past winners have included Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Joyce DiDonato, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, and Matthew Polenzani.

The soprano’s career has been on a very quick ascent in recent seasons. She made a widely praised Metropolitan Opera debut as Gilda in Rigoletto in 2015 and received rave reviews last month for her performance as Ilia in the Met production of Mozart’s Idomeneo.

In a released statement, Sierra said “I cannot thank the Richard Tucker Music Foundation enough for this incredible honor and for all the support they’ve shown me since I first auditioned for a Sara Tucker Study Grant in 2010. I am humbled to receive this award and to follow in the very large footsteps of those who have preceded me.”

“We are elated to have Nadine as our 2017 Richard Tucker Award winner, said Barry Tucker, president of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation and son of the Brooklyn-born tenor for whom the foundation is named. “Having known her since she was an undergraduate in college and been in awe of her talents even back then, I could not be more impressed by how she has developed as a singer. She possesses an artistic maturity that is well beyond her years and is destined to be a leading light of the opera world.”

Sierra, 28, made her professional debut while still a teenager in a Palm Beach Opera production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. After graduating from New York’s Mannes College of Music, she entered the Adler Fellowship Program at San Francisco Opera.

Sierra has sung many times in her native South Florida including an acclaimed 2012 Florida Grand Opera debut in Rigoletto.

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