ABOUT
Spanish-Argentinian mezzo-soprano Julia Portela Piñón recently completed her residency as the first international singer of the Judith Neilson Young Artist Programme at Cape Town Opera. During the 2023/24 season, Julia’s operatic engagements included Flora Bervoix in Verdi’s La Traviata, La suora zelatrice in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and Alisa in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.
In 2023, Julia made her South-African debut with the alto solo in Mozart’s Requiem in a touring production in the UK and SA collaborating with Jazzart and Phoenix Dance Theatres, directed by Dane Hurst and conducted by Bernhard Gueller.
Born in Lugo, Spain, Julia studied for over a decade in London, UK, first at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music. From the latter, she obtained a Bachelor of Music in Performance, a Master of Arts in Performance with Distinction and an Advanced Diploma in Opera Performance, generously supported by the Norman Ayrton Award.
In competition, Julia has sung in the Final Live Rounds of the 42nd International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Latvia, the 15th International Competition for Baroque Opera ‘Pietro Antonio Cesti’ in Austria and the 5th International Adam Didur Opera Singers’ Competition in Poland (2024). Prizewinner of the 30th Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg International Singing Competition (Berlin, 2020) and the Marjorie Thomas Art of Song Prize (London, 2017), she has also been a semifinalist at the Premiere Opera Foundation Competition (New York, 2022), the XVIII Certamen Nuevas Voces Ciudad de Sevilla (2022) and reached the Second Round of Neue Stimmen (London, 2021 & Cape Town, 2024).
Past operatic appearances include Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with Ensemble OrQuesta at the Grimeborn Opera Festival (2022), Tirinto in Handel’s Imeneo conducted by David Bates (2022), cover of Komponist in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (2022), Concepcion in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole (2021), Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (2021) and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas conducted by Elizabeth Kenny (2021) with Royal Academy Opera in London, UK.
In orchestral solo engagements, Julia has performed with the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vlad Iftinca during the 3rd International Opera Workshop Waiblingen run by Thomas Hampson (2022), the Royal Academy Baroque Orchestra conducted by Masaaki Suzuki in a performance of Bach’s B minor mass (2019), and the City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra with whom she performed Elgar’s Sea Pictures at the West Road Concert Hall (2018).
Julia enjoys an extensive career in oratorio performance. Highlights as a soloist include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Lugo, 2024 & London, 2022), Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (Cambridge, 2020), Mozart’s Coronation Mass (Cape Town, 2024 & Cambridge, 2020), Bach’s St John Passion (Leith Hill Music Festival, Dorking, 2019), Mozart's Vesperae Solennes de Confessore and Haydn's Missa in Angustiis (Bath, 2019), and Bruckner’s Requiem (London, 2019). In 2020, Julia was excited to be making her oratorio debut in Spain with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 conducted by Maximino Zumalave in A Coruña and Vigo, but it was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19.
Her experience also includes masterclasses with Kyungho Kim (Cape Town Opera, 2023), Rachelle Jonck (NATS Conference South Africa Chapter, 2023), Anne Sofie von Otter (Royal Swedish Opera, 2023), Susan Bullock, Dame Sarah Connolly (Royal Academy of Music, 2022), Alberto Zedda (A Coruña, 2016), and concerts with Semyon Bychkov (2017) and Santtu-Matias Rouvali (2022) performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Philharmonia Chorus at the Royal Festival Hall.
Aside from her performing career, Julia is a dedicated private vocal and language coach with a determined acquisition and passion for languages. She is trilingual in Spanish, Galician and English, fluent in Italian and French, and has a strong command of German and Russian.