Elisabeth St-Gelais: The North Star

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Makings of a Star

Freshly emerged from a winning streak on the domestic competition circuit with an almost unparalleled record for a Canadian vocal artist in her 20s, soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais is enjoying a promising career on the national and international stage. Since 2022, she has won an impressive number of awards, including the Wirth Vocal Prize at McGill, first prize (age 19-30) at the Canadian Music Competition, the Prix d’Europe, first prize and audience prize at the Centre Stage Competition of the Canadian Opera Company as well as mentions at the District Winner of the Met Lafont Competition in 2024 and 2025, the Mécénat Musical Vocal Prize and third prize, Fondation Père-Lindsay.

Born and raised in a small Innu community along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, St-Gelais discovered music while driving from Pessamit to Chicoutimi with her mother and grandmother. Her formal introduction to music as a six-year-old chorister soon led to private singing lessons where she tackled mainstays from 24 Soprano Arias, songs by Erik Satie like “Daphénéo,” “Les oiseaux” and “Je te veux,” as well as “Les chemins de l’amour” by Francis Poulenc. “I started learning classical repertoire very young because my voice lent itself to it naturally. There was no debate whether I would continue or not—I was devoted,” she says.

Elisabeth St-Gelais with Orchestre du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean. Photo: Michel Baron

Ingredients of Success

The young soprano’s meteoric rise is even more fascinating given the remarkable consistency of her performances throughout different stages of a growing career. What accounts for such maturity at an age when most of her peers are still searching for their voice, their path, or their technique? The first ingredient, besides passion, is hard work, says St-Gelais. “This is challenging for everyone,” she adds, “and it takes years to make a habit out of seeing your teacher or vocal coach weekly, and to keep working on difficult repertoire to stay in shape.”

Elisabeth St-Gelais with National Arts Centre Orchestra & Alexander Shelley. Photo: Curtis Perry

From her undergraduate to her master’s degree at McGill’s Schulich School of Music, St-Gelais studied with soprano Aline Kutan. “She taught with her heart and helped me discover myself as a young woman through singing. It was almost spiritual.” It was also at McGill where she met renowned collaborative pianist Louise Pelletier. “Louise was my coach throughout my undergrad and master’s,” she says. “She was also much more than that. She took me under her wing and gave me a huge amount of her time and care.” Their collaboration blossomed with the soprano’s success at the Wirth Vocal Competition in 2022 and matured into their first album together, Infini, released by ATMA Classique in 2024. “I treasure her partnership immensely. I was truly blessed to meet her on my path.”

Other mentors have included Ariane Girard, Deborah Birnbaum, and tenor Stefano Algieri with whom she has been working for the past year. “Stefano has had an extraordinary career and has seen much of what I wish to see, too. He brings me back to earth and is very grounded in himself. He takes great care of me by protecting my youth through my voice and my technique,” she explains.

Self-protection plays a fundamental role for St-Gelais. “When you have some success or some talent, you need to learn how to protect yourself in order to keep progressing in that (area in) which you’ve invested all your energy,” she says. This includes protecting oneself against a harsh and competitive environment, but also having the wisdom to turn down offers that may be too great to handle, despite their appeal. “I would be tempted to sing Wagner next year, but that would be reckless. I must protect my voice, my body, and all the efforts I’ve put into my development. I’ve only learned this in the last five years—and no one can do it (except for) me.”

Dawn of New Horizons

The 2025-26 season brings new collaborations with Orchestre classique de Montréal, Violons du Roy, Orchestre de l’Agora, and several recitals in and around Quebec. Yet, this is not her first rodeo with an orchestra. “Over the past year, I’ve worked with such interesting conductors—Dina Gilbert, Rafael Payare, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nicolas Ellis, Benoît Gauthier. Each work I’ve tackled with an orchestra contributes to my understanding of the blend between my voice, the orchestra, and the conductor. You need to plunge deeply into it for it to grow. I love being in front of this big boat and I know that not all singers are so lucky at my age.”

This summer, the soprano will perform in a more intimate setting, first at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival with Louise Pelletier on June 21^st, National Indigenous Peoples Day. In July, she will be on tour with organist Jean-Willy Kuntz in various cathedrals around Quebec and at Domaine Forget de Charlevoix. She will also present recitals at Cathédrale de Chicoutimi, Série Orgue with Céline Fortin, and Festival Odyssée artistique des Grandes Bergeronnes with Louise Pelletier. Later this year, she will present a recital in collaboration with Pelletier at the Centre culturel de Beloeil, among other venues.

In addition to her concert and recital appearances, St-Gelais is discovering operatic roles. On the horizon lies a production of Gounod’s Faust in 2027 and an Indigenous opera premiere in collaboration with two major Canadian music institutions. As a lyric soprano, she would love to take on Mozart roles like Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte and Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito. Early Verdi operas are also of great interest.

Photo: Ville De Pluie – Andre Rainville

Indigenous Representation: “Anything is Possible”

A particularly important aspect of St-Gelais’s ambition lies in her work representing First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples within classical music and the arts in general. In the era of Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous people in Canada and the United States are coming to prominence in all spheres of society, she points out. As an Indigenous classical singer, she is living proof of this phenomenon.

In November 2024, St-Gelais collaborated with Nicolas Ellis and Orchestre de l’Agora on an album of songs composed by Ian Cusson, a Métis composer who frequently deals with Indigenous themes. The album will be released next October. During her residency at Jeunesses Musicales Canada in 2023-24, she contributed to the creation of a four-movement suite, Innushkueu (Innu Woman), inspired by the works of Joséphine Bacon, a renowned poet born in St-Gelais’s hometown of Pessamit.

Elisabeth St-Gelais with Samian and a dancer

Other Indigenous artists who have had an impact on her include the rapper Samian, with whom St-Gelais performed at Quebec City’s SuperFrancoFête last summer. “Samian has become a truly valued acquaintance of mine; he’s an extremely likeable, passionate, and committed person. I’m proud to have such dedicated colleagues and I hope to be as devoted as he is one day,” she says.

Among her upcoming projects, St-Gelais will take part in the program Le grand solstice produced by Elisapie Isaac, to be broadcast on Télé-Québec on June 21 to mark the summer solstice and National Indigenous Peoples Day. For Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, St-Gelais will perform alongside Robert Charlevoix, Sara Dufour, Bon Enfant, Yann Perreau and other Quebec artists on June 24 at Parc Maisonneuve, in Montreal. “The Fête nationale will be broadcast on Radio-Canada and TVA, so it’s going to be really special to have this opportunity. In my mission to represent First Nations, that’s extremely rewarding,” she says.

Finally, St-Gelais dreams of taking part in the production of an Indigenous opera at the Met in New York. But she doesn’t underestimate the scale of such an undertaking. “You can’t do it on your own. You need a crowd that believes in Indigenous talent: a good composer, a good opera, a director or decision-makers who want to help it flourish. The burden of Truth and Reconciliation lies not only with the Indigenous people, but also with those who wish to reconcile with us,” she says wisely. “Everyone must get on board, but I don’t think the dream is that far out of reach. I think that anything is possible for us now,” concludes St-Gelais proudly.