Eleanor Lyons

Australian soprano Eleanor Lyons studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Elena Obraztsova, Barry Ryan and Viktoria Dodoka, before joining the Mariinsky Academy for Young Opera Singers in St. Petersburg and pursuing her studies further at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She is a recipient of the prestigious Vienna State Opera Award of the Australian Opera Foundation.

Early on in her career Eleanor Lyons sang the role of Anne Truelove in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at the Hungarian State Opera, where she later sang Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème. After making her highly acclaimed debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni at Opera Australia in Sydney, and in a concert performance at the Jinji Lake Concert Hall in Suzhou (China), she went on to appear at the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent as both Mimì and Gretchen in a stage adaptation of Schumann's Szenen aus Goethes Faust. As Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio, she made her house debut at the Semperoper Dresden under the direction of David Afkham.

Equally sought-after as an international concert soloist, Eleanor Lyons has appeared in Britten's War Requiem with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra conducted by Philippe Herreweghe and the Noord Nederlands Orkest conducted by Stefan Ashbury. The soprano is in regular demand as soloist for Verdi's Messa da Requiem, having notably performed the work in a Zurich Opera production staged by Christian Spuck as part of the Adelaide Festival 2023 and at the Zurich Opera House. Further collaborations have included Gustav Mahler's 4th Symphony and Berio's Folk Songs with the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Ravel's Chansons Madécasses and Strauss' Four Last Songs with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer, and Mahler's Das klagende Lied with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young.

Eleanor Lyons maintains a special collaboration with Philippe Herreweghe and the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, with whom she toured Europe in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the oratorio Christus am Ölberge and his Missa Solemnis. She also made her critically acclaimed debut with the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony under Dennis Russell Davies and celebrated her first appearance at the Vienna Musikverein in Bruckner's Psalm 150 with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Petr Popelka. At the 2022 Festival Les Chorégies d'Orange, she appeared as soloist in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis under John Nelson as part of the French Bastille Day celebrations.

Further engagements on the concert platform have included Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under Kazuki Yamada, with the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Torino under Aziz Shokhakimov and with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer; Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2 "Lobgesang" with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Marie Jacquot; Strauss' Four Last Songs with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer; a New Year's Concert with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem and Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang" once more with the Balthasar Neumann Choir & Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock. Eleanor Lyons could be heard for the first time as Freia in two concert performances of Wagner’s Das Rheingold with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young.

Highlights of the previous season include Leonore in concert performances of Beethoven's Fidelio with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España under David Afkham, Britten's Les Illuminations with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern under Michael Schønwandt, Dvořák's Stabat Mater with the Rundfunksinfonie-Orchester Berlin under Philippe Herreweghe, Poulenc's Stabat Mater with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Kazuki Yamada and Erich Zeisl's Requiem Ebraico with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop at the Vienna Musikverein.

Appearances in the current season include Rossini's ‘Stabat Mater’ with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra under Valentina Peleggi, Verdi's ‘Messa da Requiem’ with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra under Umberto Clerici and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Stefan Blunier. Eleanor Lyons will additionally appear as a soloist in Mahler's Eighth Symphony with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under Eliahu Inbal and in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra under Dmitry Matvienko.

Eleanor Lyons regularly collaborates with pianist Stanislav Soloviev on the recital stage, primarily focusing on the works of Sergei Rachmaninov and his contemporaries.