American soprano Maria Natale makes Canadian debut with Calgary Opera's Tosca

When soprano Maria Natale was growing up in California, she was intrigued by the music her paternal grandfather listened to in his apartment.

He came to the U.S. from Sicily as a child, and opera became his great passion. Growing up in Pittsburgh, the local opera company even gave him free voice lessons because of his prodigious talent. He started attending performances at a young age and eventually studied opera in school. His dream was to become a professional.

“I remember going into his apartment,” says Natale, in an interview with Postmedia during a break from rehearsing Calgary Opera’s Tosca. “It was always so dark and cold, and all of the drapes were shut. He’d be sitting in the dark listening to blasting opera. Specifically, I remember Aida playing. It was kind of like a scary, brooding environment, but that was my first introduction to opera, and it had a big impact on me. At a very young age, I had, for lack of a better word, an obsession with opera. I never thought about doing anything different with my life.”

Her grandfather never realized his dream. He was on track, but to provide for his family in Pittsburgh, he took on a job as a truck driver. When Natale’s parents moved to Southern California, he moved there as well. He recognized his granddaughter as a fellow opera enthusiast and told her early on that she was going to be a professional. When she was 10, he specifically said he could see her performing the titular role in Tosca, Giacomo Puccini’s classic tale about a religious and passionate opera diva who is forced to make a terrible choice.

He began giving her recordings to borrow when she was young.

That’s when Natale first heard Australian coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland singing Casta Diva from Norma, which she listened to “every single night before I went to bed.” It made her want to be an opera singer. Her grandfather also introduced a recording of American-Greek soprano Maria Callas singing Vissi d’Arte, the famous aria from Tosca.

“I remember seeing a picture of her in a red gown and saying, ‘That’s what I want to be.’ ”

Natale’s grandfather died when she was 21. She was early in her training as an opera singer at that point.

“One of his final requests was to make sure that I got all of his records,” Natale says. “So I now have all his records in my library. I have all his old sheet music and arias that he would sing. I had already gone through college and really had studied a lot. He didn’t really get to hear me sing very often, which is kind of sad if I think about it. But I think he might be looking down.”

One of her grandfather’s favourite tenors was Placido Domingo, who Natale briefly met while still a student. On the day her grandfather died, Domingo called, offering guidance for her career after hearing she was auditioning for young artist programs at various companies.

“That was a major full-circle moment,” she says.

Her grandfather was right about Tosca. On Oct. 16, Natale will make her Canadian debut in Calgary Opera’s production of Puccini’s classic. It’s her fourth time taking on the role.

She made her Tosca debut in San Jose and later performed it in Iowa. This summer, she sang the role at the Immling Festival near Munich. Later this year, she will perform it in Florida and for another opera company that she can’t reveal because it hasn’t yet been announced.

Natale has won praise for a number of roles, but seems to have a particular affinity for Puccini. She made her European debut in 2025 at Immling in the title role of Manon Lescaut and sang the role of Cio-Cio San in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly in Tulsa, Okla. But Floria Tosca may be her favourite role.

Tosca is a political thriller that takes place over 18 hours in 1800s Rome during the Napoleonic Wars. Floria Tosca is a famous opera singer in love with painter Mario Cavaradossi (tenor David Esteban), who helps a fellow revolutionary escape prison and is arrested, tortured and sentenced to death by brutal police chief Baron Scarpia (baritone Boaz Daniel). The chief uses Cavaradossi as a bargaining chip to force Tosca to give information. Scarpia also has ulterior motives. He is also in love with Tosca, who faces a terrible choice to save the life of her true love.

“Puccini operas are, in my opinion, the perfect gateway into opera,” Natale says. “First of all, the music is undeniably beautiful. It’s really nothing that you have to think intellectually about to understand. Maybe if you see a Strauss opera, it takes a few listens to understand the intellectual part of that music. It’s like learning to love wine; you have to get the palate for it.

“But Puccini is just undeniably beautiful music, and it hits this part of the soul. It’s just a human part that everybody can connect with. Also, the storyline is rather simple. Usually people fall in love, and then they die. There’s one major problem, and then they die. It’s not a majorly complicated plot. You don’t have to be glued to the subtitles because you get the gist of what’s going on just by watching it.”

That’s not to say that the main character herself isn’t complicated.

“Sometimes, when I’m in the middle of a production, I always say, ‘this is my favourite.’ But after singing her so many times and getting her into my body and understanding the character, I really do feel like this is my favourite. She has so many sides of her character. She is not one-dimensional at all; she is very complex. She is very passionate, she is faithful, she has very strong convictions, and she has this fire in her. I identify a lot with her personality. I think that’s why I love singing this role this much. I feel like there is a lot of her in me, personally.”

She also has some diva-like leanings.

“She is a diva,” Natale says with a laugh. “She is an opera singer. So that’s something I identify with, obviously. She loves adulation from the public. But she also has this giving side, this loving side. She has a very religious side to her. I’m a faithful person myself, so I identify with that. There are so many assets to her that I see in myself.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a major diva. I have little diva moments. But I’d say I’m a down-to-earth diva.”

Tosca will run Friday, Oct. 16 and Saturday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6) and Sunday, Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. (doors open at 12:30 p.m.) at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.