Bridget Esler

Praised for her “enchanting and expressive singing” (Henley Standard) and her “buoyant charm as an actor” (Georgia Strait), Vancouver-born soprano Bridget Esler joins the Opéra de Montréal’s Atelier lyrique in the 2024–2025 season. Recently returned from London, England, where she completed her graduate studies, Bridget has performed across Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States with ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.

This season, she will make her mainstage debut as the Nightingale/Pastourelle/Owl in L’Enfant et les sortilèges and sing Monica in The Medium. Other recent operatic roles include the Parrot in Anna Pidgorna’s Plaything (Musique 3 Femmes/Opera America), Artemisia in Ivan Barbotin’s The Rape of Artemisia, and Mary in Street Scene (Opera McGill).

A keen chamber musician and recitalist, Bridget was an artist-in-residence at the Marlboro Music Festival in 2024, a Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2023, and a Samling Artist at the Samling Institute in 2022. She enjoys a busy schedule as a concert soloist, with recent engagements including Carmina Burana (Amchor), semi-chorus in Elijah (London Symphony Orchestra), Mozart’s Mass in C Minor (Islington Choral Society), and Messiah (Kimbolton School). Experienced on the competition circuit, Bridget was named Most Outstanding Canadian Musician at the 2024 Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition and was awarded first place of the Guildhall School’s English Song Prize in 2023.

Bridget has a special interest in contemporary music; she has sung six world premières and champions the works of twentieth- and twenty-first-century composers in her repertoire. Recent new music performance highlights include Lukas Foss’ Time Cycle at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, and an appearance at the Opera America New Works Forum in New York City.

Bridget is the recipient of support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund, the Josephine Baker Trust, the Art Song Foundation of Canada, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Adelaide E. Alexander Memorial Scholarship. She is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.

Member of the Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra de Montréal, Bridget is generously sponsored by Le Square Phillips Hotel & Suites.