Mezzo soprano Nancy Fabiola Herrera, born in Caracas, Venezuela, grew up in Las Palmas in Spain’s Canary Islands, where she began music training at eight. After moving to Madrid to finish piano studies and prepare for a tourism career, her vocal brilliance emerged, leading her to the Juilliard School of Music in New York City and four more years at The Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia.
Though a mezzo had fewer starring roles, she became in demand as Carmen in Bizet’s French-language opera from Tokyo to Buenos Aires. She first appeared in Puerto Rico in 2006, in a concert honoring Spanish tenor Placido Domingo’s 35-year collaboration with the island, and sang Verdi’s Requiem in the 2006 Casals Festival, its 50th edition, and again in 2013.
Now an international prima donna, she has played Carmen, Delilah and Amneris in Verdi’s Aida on nearly every world stage. She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 2004 as Suzuki in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Two years later she made an award-winning Deutsche Gramophone recording of Federico Moreno Torroba’s zarzuela Luisa Fernanda with Placido Domingo and Spanish soprano Mariola Cantarero, whom older Puerto Rican opera lovers may remember as Best Zarzuela Singer at Operalia 1991 in San Juan.
Herrera says the recording elevates zarzuela toward the level of Italian and French opera, her longtime goal.