One aria changed everything, and now Ariana Maubach is stepping into Gioachino Rossini’s world at the Canadian Opera Company (COC). In The Barber of Seville, she gets to be both the woman plotting her escape and the one who’s seen it all before.
For the Canadian mezzo-soprano Ariana Maubach, that moment came in a triumphant rush during COC’s 2024 Centre Stage competition at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. “The night of COC Centre Stage was surreal,” she says. “I remember being so excited to step foot on stage.” She sang “Seguidilla” from Bizet’s Carmen in the closed round and “Cruda sorte!” from Rossini’s L’taliana in Algeri for the public performance, Winning both the $7500 First Prize and the $1000 Audience Choice Award at the Canadian Opera Company’s Centre Stage: Ensemble Studio Competition marked a turning point, but what lingered most was who was there to witness it. “It meant a great deal to me too, to have friends, family, and some of my most formative music teachers in the audience that night. Sharing that experience with all of them is certainly part of what made it so special.”
Centre Stage is designed not just as a competition, but as a gateway, offering finalists the chance to work closely with the COC’s artistic team and, for one singer, to join the Ensemble Studio. For Maubach, that glimpse behind the curtain proved decisive. “From working with the core trainers in the week leading up to the competition, I knew that if I joined the ensemble that I would be in the hands of experts who would help take my singing to the next level,” she says. “I left that week with new ideas and challenges that I was determined to tackle. I felt inspired and invigorated.”
Maubach made her professional debut last season as Linette in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges with Des Moines Metro Opera through its Apprentice Artist program. Additional highlights include a Fusion workshop of Bulrusher with Cincinnati Opera, performances with the Spoleto Festival, and Eugene Onegin at the Music Academy of the West.
She holds a Bachelor of Music in Voice with Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where her roles included Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites and Dorothée in L’Amant anonyme.
That momentum carries directly into her COC debut this season, where she appears in two performances of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville: as Berta in the mainstage production, and as Rosina in the Ensemble Studio Performance on February 20.
Rossini’s effervescent comedy centres on Rosina, a sharp-witted young woman determined to outmanoeuvre her guardian, Dr. Bartolo, and choose love on her own terms. With the help of Figaro, disguises multiply, alliances shift, and social hierarchies unravel in a whirlwind of colouratura and comic timing. Orbiting the intrigue is Berta, Bartolo’s long-suffering housekeeper, whose brief but pointed aria offers a wry, world-weary perspective on the chaos unfolding around her.
Maubach feels an immediate kinship with Rosina. “I see a lot of myself in Rosina. Of all the characters I’ve portrayed, her temperament and qualities align most closely with my own. She’s playful, quick-thinking, and fiercely determined.” She adds, with affectionate humour, “Having an older brother, I know what it’s like to deal with a man, who likes to push my buttons and who sometimes underestimates me.”
What makes the role particularly meaningful is how recently it felt out of reach. “That said, Rosina is a role that would have terrified me a year ago,” she says. “But as a singer, I’ve grown tremendously over the past year, and now I feel ready to embrace her. In fact, Rosina has become one of my favourite roles in my repertoire.”
Berta offers a very different lens. “She’s jaded, worn out and fed up with the chaos that she lives in,” Maubach says dryly. “Maybe I will relate to Berta more as I age. Ask me about her again in about 40 years.” The joke lands, but so does the insight: even in comedy, Maubach approaches character with empathy rather than caricature.
Vocally, inhabiting both roles demands stamina and precision. “Stamina is the name of the game for sure,” she explains. “Running full scenes back-to-back and really making sure that I’m transitioning out of one number into the next is important.” Rossini’s writing, she notes, leaves no room for approximation. “Rossini is very specific with his markings. Dynamic contrast and specific articulations are really what bring his music to life.”
For Maubach, the score itself holds the key. “I think that because the temperaments of the two characters are so different and also the tessituras, the colours are already written into the score, you just need to pay close attention to the details on the page.”
Away from the stage, her life is notably quieter than the whirlwind comedies she performs. “I’m a huge homebody. Have never been big into partying or going out,” she says. “My ideal night would be spent staying-in with friends, cooking together, and playing Fishbowl or Codenames.” Those relationships feed her artistry in unexpected ways. “My friends and family are certainly sources of inspiration as well. I love casting people in my life as the different roles in any given opera. It makes performing much more realistic and fun for me.”
She also values physical grounding. “I also love decompressing with Pilates. In addition to being exercise, Pilates helps to calm the outside noise, makes me stronger, and helps me focus on my form and breathing.”
Looking ahead, Maubach’s curiosity continues to widen. “I have my first taste of Carmen coming up in the Peter Brooks adaptation, La Tragédie de Carmen this summer in San Francisco with Merola Opera Program,” she says. “I’d certainly love to tackle Bizet’s version one day too.” She’s also eager to explore new theatrical territory. “I’ve also never had the chance to perform any pants roles. I think two pants roles that intrigue me are Hansel from Hansel and Gretel and Romeo from I Capuleti e i Montecchi.”
For now, though, Maubach stands at a compelling threshold—moving between youth and experience, sparkle and fatigue, mischief and resignation within a single opera.
Maubach appears as Berta in Canadian Opera Company’s mainstage production of The Barber of Seville, conducted by Daniela Candillari and directed by Joan Font, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, and as Rosina in the Ensemble Studio Performance, conducted by Sandra Horst and directed by Anna Theodosakis. For run dates, performance details, and tickets, visit coc.ca.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
