Most opera singers don’t get to perform their dream role as their main-stage debut. But there was Yannick-Muriel Noah, bringing to life Tosca, her be all and end all of the big Giacomo Puccini roles, with the Canadian Opera Company. It was early 2008, and the star had fallen ill. Noah stepped in as her understudy, wowing the crowd and critics in true storybook fashion.

From the home in Toronto that she shares with her husband and two young daughters, the fast-rising soprano recounts the tale with characteristic modesty. “I was lucky enough to do two performances,” she says. “The first one I was like a deer in headlights. But the second definitely confirmed that this is what I wanted to do. I felt like a fish in water, so that was a defining moment.

“Tosca is so extreme. There’s so much personality to this woman. She has to go from vengeful to tender in a split second. There are so many palettes to get across.”

From that dramatic start, the Madagascar-born, Ottawa-raised soprano has gone on to sing the title role in Aida in Klagenfurt, Austria, as well as that of Madama Butterfly with the Canadian Opera Company, to equally resounding praise. (The Toronto press called her Cio-Cio San everything from “gloriously compelling” to “a blend of detailed characterization and creamy voice”.) We in Vancouver have never heard her live, but will finally have the chance at a special MusicFest Vancouver recital next Thursday (August 12) at Christ Church Cathedral. Many see it as a chance to catch her before she becomes a big international star.

Finding her art form wasn’t a direct route for Noah, who says she grew up in a nonmusical family. When she was a young teen, her first singing teacher told her she had an operatic voice, but she never considered it seriously as a profession. Instead, she embarked on an architecture degree at Ottawa’s Carleton University, all the while pursuing private voice lessons on the side. She finished her degree, but she knew in her heart she had to take a shot at opera: though she had no academic background in the field, in 2005 she auditioned for the Canadian Opera Company’s prestigious Ensemble Studio training program. To her utter amazement, she was accepted. “I had essentially no experience, and I was so surprised they took me. It completely changed the path that I was taking,” she says.

Her voice, richly hued and effortlessly big, has found a natural home in the works of Puccini and Giuseppe Verdi, whose pieces she’ll be singing in her recital with pianist Rena Sharon here. “Just the way Verdi wrote the music, it allows my voice to bloom at all the right places,” she explains. “Puccini speaks to the actor in me: the roles are so well built and developed, with so many details to the characters.”

Next year, aside from her usual tireless schedule of competitions (she has countless international prizes under her belt), she’ll sing Verdi’s Requiem with the Victoria Symphony, as well as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Quebec City. And she’ll finally get a second chance to take on the title role in Tosca, with the Edmonton Opera. She knows from performing Butterfly twice (she tackled the part again at Germany’s Staatsoper Hannover in June) that she’ll probably enjoy it even more this time.

“It’s like meeting old friends again,” she says, “rather than a daunting task.”