Nicole Heaston completed her master’s degree in voice at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and received her undergraduate degree in music at the University of Akron. She is a distinguished graduate of Houston Grand Opera’s Butler Studio. The soprano began the 2024–25 season by returning to the role of Claire Devon in the North American premiere of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s The Listeners at Opera Philadelphia; a native Chicagoan, she headlines Lyric Opera of Chicago’s spring 2025 performances of the opera, making her company debut. With the National Symphony Orchestra, she sings the title role in Samuel Barber’s Vanessa. Other engagements include a Christmas program with Houston’s Mercury Chamber Orchestra and the role of Armida in Detroit Opera’s production of Handel’s Rinaldo. A richly varied 2023–24 season included Nicole’s return to Los Angeles Opera, as Mary in William Grant Still’s Highway 1, USA, and to Houston Grand Opera, as Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff. With Philharmonia Baroque, she sang Anna/Dido in Errollyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. During the 2022–23 season, Nicole performed the world premiere of The Listeners at Den Norkse Opera, appeared as Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with Houston Grand Opera, and gave her first career performances of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, at Charleston’s Spoleto Festival USA. Since her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, she has appeared several times with the theater, singing Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte (conducted by James Levine), and Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos.