“I took a picture and I was like, there’s not a single gray hair,” says Heaston, who lives in the Houston area and has appeared in several HGO Digital productions over the past year.

She recently sang Liu for the Maryland Lyric Opera the previous time, shortly after singing Mimi in HGO’s 2018 production of Puccini’s “La bohème,” was aimed at a “ridiculously receptive” - and young - audience in Guadalajara.

HGO’s latest “Turandot,” which will be presented at the Wortham Center from April 22 to May 8, will be Heaston’s third time performing an opera that has fascinated and bewildered audiences for nearly a century. “I’m that girl, that unrequited love, the nice girl who really loves the lead tenor and he has no time for her,” says the soprano and Houston Grand Opera Studio alumnus. Nicole Heaston in Houston Grand Opera’s “Turandot”ĭiscussing Liu in “Turandot,” Nicole Heaston draws an easy parallel between her role in Giacomo Puccini’s latest opera and another classic: that of Michaela in “Carmen.”

Houston grand opera turandot