Spanish-Argentinian mezzo-soprano Julia Portela Piñón completed a 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, as well as the alto solo in Mozart’s Requiem.

In 2024/25 and the current season, Julia made her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in a project dedicated to new works directed by Àlex Ollé, debuted the role of Dorabella in Luxembourg with Umberto Finazzi and Daniele Piscopo, and had her Serbian debut at the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum as Tolomeo in Händel’s Giulio Cesare with New Belgrade Opera.

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 63rd Tenor Viñas Contest in Spain (2026), the 42nd International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Latvia and the 15th International Competition for Baroque Opera ‘Pietro Antonio Cesti’ in Austria (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 Finalist at the 5th Concorso Internazionale di Canto Marmo all’Opera (Carrara, 2025) and a Semifinalist at the Premiere Opera Foundation Competition (New York, 2022).

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).

Aside from her performing career, Julia is a dedicated polyglot. She is trilingual in Spanish, Galician and English, fluent in Italian and French, and has a strong command of German and Russian.