Maria Vetere, soprano
An artistic daughter of the Niagara Region, Dr. Maria Vetere has since age five represented Southern Ontario from local, provincial, and national competitions to national and international performance stages around the world. She is a “triple threat artist: “ not only a seasoned performer in voice, piano, and concert accordion, but a highly educated scholar, and one of the most sought after voice/opera pedagogues. For her global operatic and musical achievements.
Dr. Vetere was inducted into the Niagara Falls Cultural Wall of Fame in October 2021. In December 2019, she gave a triumphant debut at New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall where she garnered an ecstatic ovation, as she has from International audiences. She has performed in the most prestigious performance venues in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, South America, and Europe and has established herself as a world-class Italian soprano. In 2017, she received the highest honour of the NYIOP International Auditions for vocal excellence in a female voice internationally. In September of 2016 she “stole the show” in a Gala performance at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center where reviewer, Michael Caruso said, “Her singing not only combined the tonal beauty of Renata Tebaldi with just a touch of Maria Callas’ cutting edge.” She has been lauded by Simonetta Puccini (Giacomo Puccini’s granddaughter), legendary opera conductor Maestro Richard Bonynge, the Fondazione Museo Renata Tebaldi, the Amici di Verdi in Busseto, Italy, as well as conductors and concert organizers on five continents. Dr. Vetere has established, designed, and founded several prestigious and internationally renowned Summer Opera Programs in Italy, and 2017, she founded and became the General Director of Niagara’s first opera company, Opera Niagara. In 2024, Vetere established “The Opera Festival of Niagara which presented an entire week of concerts and operas celebrating the centenary of Puccini’s death. As of 2024, the now renowned Vetere Studio International has received global attention and recognition for vocal excellence. The technique Dr. Vetere teaches internationally became the subject of a feature article in Opera Canada Magazine Spring Issue 2020. Academically, Dr. Vetere holds a PhD in Historical Musicology, a Masters in Historical Musicology, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano and Voice Performance Magna Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has received numerous awards, accolades, and scholarships in academia and has presented her research at various musicological conferences. Her groundbreaking dissertation: Italian Opera from Verdi to Verismo: Boito and the Scapigliatura has been lauded as a seminal contribution to the historiography of Italian Opera.