Mezzo-Soprano Leia Lensing. Photo by Jiyang Chen.

Biography

Leia Lensing was lauded by Houstonia magazine for her “clarity and opulent color” in her Houston Grand Opera debut as Mary in Der fliegende Holländer. In the 2023-24 season, she makes her debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte and returns to the Staatsoper Stuttgart as the Third Secretary in Nixon in China following her performances of Waltraute in Die Walküre and the Third Wood Nymph in Rusalka in the previous two seasons.

She has joined Ars Lyrica Houston for Bach’s Vergnügte Ruh’, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170 and Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß, BWV, 134 as well as for a program of Handel and Bach centered upon Hercules. She sang the title role of Holst’s Savitri with Wolf Trap Opera and previously joined the Metropolitan Opera roster for its productions of Die Zauberflöte and La traviata. Her reprisal of Mary in Der fliengende Holländer and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, both with Utah Opera; Maman, La tasse chinoise, Un pâtre, and La libellule in L’enfant et les sortileges with Florentine Opera; and her return to Houston Grand Opera as a Flowermaiden and Voice from Above in Parsifal were cancelled due to COVID-19, as were her scheduled performances of the Page von Herodias in Salome and Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte with the company, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Houston Symphony, and her role debut as Olga in Eugene Onegin with Wolf Trap Opera as a Filene Artists in the previous season.

She recently completed her tenure as a member of Houston Grand Opera’s prestigious Studio, where her performances also included excerpts of Clarice in La pietra del paragone, Juno in Semele, and Madame de la Haltière in Cendrillon in addition to covering David in Saul. She is a former two-time member of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Singer program at which she sang Vaughn Williams’ Serenade to Music opening the company’s concert feature Renée Fleming, performed scenes of the Orfeo in Orfeo ed Euridice and Zita in Gianni Schicchi, and covered Pasqualita in Adams’ Doctor Atomic and Grandmother Buryjovka in Jenufa. Upon the culmination of her work with Santa Fe Opera, she won the Campbell/Wachter Scholarship Award. She is also a former Apprentice Artist of Des Moines Metro Opera.

On the concert stage, she has also sung Haydn’s Theresienmesse with the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony and holds in her repertoire Handel’s Messiah, de Haan’s Nervaal’s Poems, Berlioz’s Les nuits d’Ete, Copland’s Old American Songs, Elgar’s Sea Pictures, and Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

Ms. Lensing was the 2018 first prize winner of Houston Grand Opera’s Eleanor McCollum Competition. Most recently in 2020, she won first prize in Shreveport Opera’s Mary Jacobs Smith Singer of the Year Competition and second place in the Gulf Coast Region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She earned both her Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees from the University of Northern Iowa, at which she sang Maurya in Riders to the Sea.

Raves

“Leia Lensing, a mezzo whose low register revealed notable lushness, excelled in the title role. Her innately eloquent phrasing gave considerable emotional depth to Savitri’s fear, faith, and foresight.”