Francesca Chiejina
Nigerian-American soprano Francesca Chiejina is a graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where her roles included Countess Ceprana Rigoletto, Lady-in-waiting Macbeth, Voice from Heaven Don Carlo, and Ines Il trovatore. She also sang La tragédie de Carmen at Wilton’s Music Hall, and The Return of Ulysses at the Roundhouse. She is the winner of the 2023 UK Critics’ Circle Young Talent (Voice) Award. Highlights in the 2025/2026 season include role debuts as Iphigenia in Tauris with Blackheath Halls Opera and Il capello di paglia di Firenze at Oper Wuppertal, Mozart’s Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall and Elgar’s The Kingdom with the Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Royal Festival Hall as well as concerts with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and at the London Song Festival.
Highlights in the 2025/2026 season include role debuts as Iphigenia in Tauris with Blackheath Halls Opera and Elena Il capello di paglia di Firenze at Oper Wuppertal, Mozart’s Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall and Elgar’s The Kingdom with the Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Royal Festival Hall as well as concerts with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and at the London Song Festival.
Recent operatic highlights include: Jo Ann New Year with Birmingham Opera Company; title role Semele with Blackheath Opera; High Priestess Aida at Royal Opera House; Lauretta Il Trittico with Scottish Opera; Mimì La bohème (Nevill Holt Opera, English Touring Opera); Melissa Amadigi (English Touring Opera); Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw (OperaGlass Works); the title role in English Touring Opera’s film of Elena Langer and Glyn Maxwell’s Ariadne; Freia RhineGold (Birmingham Opera Company); Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress (Blackheath Halls Opera); her debut with Capella Cracoviensis as Aldimira Sigismondo; her house and role debut as Clara Porgy and Bess at Grange Park Opera; and her debut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Serena Porgy and Bess).
On the concert platform she has recently sung Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs with Dalia Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms, Strauss Orchesterlieder with the Orchestra of Opera North and the BBC Philharmonic, Berg’s Seven Early Songs with the Sinfonia of London and John Wilson at the BBC Proms, Mozart’s Requiem with Crouch End Festival Chorus, Bach’s St John Passion with Huddersfield Choral Society and Manchester Camerata, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the BBC Philharmonic and with the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Sage Gateshead; Handel’s Messiah with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall; Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music at the Last Night of the BBC Proms; and Schubert’s Winterreise in recital at Blackheath Halls.
She is featured on the critically acclaimed recordings ‘Transfigured’ with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Chandos), ‘Our Indifferent Century’ (Delphian), Carousel with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London (Chandos) and Elgar’s The Kingdom with the Crouch End Festival Chorus.
Chiejina studied at the University of Michigan with Martha Sheil and James Paterson, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Sue McCulloch.
