With a voice described as “radiant” by The New York Times and chosen as one of the Sphinx Organization’s 2025 Medal of Excellence honorees, Nicaraguan-American soprano Gabriella Reyes is one of the most exciting and dynamic artists in music today.
This season, she returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago starring in the title role of Susannah, conducted by Daniela Candillari and directed by Patricia Racette, and makes her debut at the Bastille with Opéra national de Paris and a house debut with The Dallas Opera as Liù in Turandot. She also returns to Lyric Opera of Kansas City as Mimì in La bohème. In concert, she performs De Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas with Teatro Real in their United States tour.
In the 2025–26 season, Reyes made her house debut as Mimì in La bohème at the Bayerische Staatsoper with Maestro Luisotti and a role debut as Catrina in a new production of El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium. She also made house and role debuts at the Los Angeles Opera as Maria in Francesca Zambello’s production of West Side Story with conductor James Conlon, and at Opera North as Contessa in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro. She returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to reprise the role of Nedda in Pagliacci.
In the 2024–25 season, She returned to the Metropolitan Opera to perform the roles of Margarita Xirgu in a new production of Osvaldo Golijov’s first opera Ainadamar, and both Mimì and Musetta in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production of La bohème. She also returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Musetta and made her role debut as Violetta in La traviata with Palm Beach Opera. She also made her eagerly awaited recital debut at Carnegie Hall with pianist Andrés Sarre for the series “Nuestros sonidos: Celebrating Latin Culture in the US” before appearing in concert with the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center for Golijov’s Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra and Britten’s Les Illuminations with Karen Kamensek.
The 2023–24 season saw Reyes’s return to the Metropolitan Opera to perform the roles of Rosalba in a new production of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Liù in Turandot. She also made her role debut as Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and revisited the role of Mimì in La bohème with the Atlanta Opera. Concert highlights included Musetta in La bohème with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Bravo Vail Festival, the world premiere of The Joyful Mysteries with the Houston Chamber Choir & Orchestra, and a return to the role of Marzelline in Fidelio with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, both in Los Angeles, and on tour in Europe with stops including at the Liceu in Barcelona, the Philharmonie de Paris, and to the Barbican in London.
Operatic highlights of previous seasons include Mimì in La bohème for Reyes’s debuts at the Glyndebourne Festival and Washington National Opera, Nedda in Pagliacci for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, First Lady in The Magic Flute and Nella in Gianni Schicchi at the Metropolitan Opera, and Rosalba in Florencia en el Amazonas at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Further appearances in Europe include Reyes’s recent debut at the Dresden Semperoper as Musetta and at the Paris Opera as soloist in the Seven Deaths of Maria Callas, a house she will return to in future seasons.
In concert, Reyes appears frequently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel in roles including Marzelline in Fidelio, Bachianas Brasileiras, and excerpts from Die Zauberflöte, alongside appearances as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, New York Choral Society, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. She also appeared with the Callan Coughlan, Jacksonville Symphony as Musetta in La bohème, the Montclair Orchestra and David Chan in Behzad Ranjbaran’s Songs of Eternity, and with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in a program of Mozart.
Named a 2019 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist by the Metropolitan Opera, Reyes is a former member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. She’s a recipient of a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation in 2018 as well as a grand finalist in the 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She is a graduate of the Boston Conservatory.
