Vancouver soprano Leila Kirves is a quickly rising emerging voice, making her mark as a “colourful and charismatic” (Opera Canada) performer. This season, she looks forward to making her company and role debut with Edmonton Opera in Wagner’s Die Walküre.

In the summer of 2023, Leila joined the prestigious Gerdine Young Artist Program at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she covered the title role in Puccini’s Tosca. Her additional operatic credits include First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Giulietta in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Anna-Liese Franz in the Canadian premiere of Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger, the Countess in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, The Secretary in Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Consul, and the Foreign Princess in Dvořák’s Rusalka.

In 2021–2022, Leila was selected as a winner of the Canada district of the Metropolitan Opera’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition and went on to place third in the Northwest regionals. In 2025, she became the first recipient of the newly established Rose-Ellen Nichols Award for voice and was a finalist for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2024–2025 Ryan Opera Center ensemble. She has also received prizes from the Vancouver Opera Guild, the Vancouver Opera Foundation Fund, and the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation for Young Opera Singers.

Leila holds a master’s degree in opera performance from the University of British Columbia, as well as a diploma in opera performance from UBC.