Family just another high note for Australian soprano

Three years after they met, Melbourne-born soprano Nicole Car and Canadian baritone Etienne Dupuis are making a life together.

Australian soprano Nicole Car with her baritone husband Etienne Dupuis.

Three years after they met during a production in Germany, ­Melbourne-born soprano Nicole Car and Canadian baritone Etienne Dupuis are making a life together as an opera couple, enjoying international careers while also raising their 18-month-old son, Noah.

On Tuesday they will both make their debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in the most romantic opera of all, Puccini’s La Boheme.

It will be only the third time they have sung together on stage, after a production of Eugene ­Onegin in Berlin, where they met in 2015, and then a concert performance of Thais in Sydney last year.

In La Boheme, Car will portray the poor seamstress Mimi in the lavish 1981 production by Franco Zeffirelli, whose roll call of former Mimis includes Teresa Stratas, Mirella Freni and Angela Gheorghiu.

It was nothing to be nervous about, Car said, as the production was well-known to the backstage crew and the singers were all very familiar with this best-loved opera.

“I find it more exciting than anything else,” she said. “It’s a young cast and we can have fun.”

Car’s romantic interest in the opera is the Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo, who plays Rodolfo, while Dupuis appears as the artist Marcello.

Car and her husband recently bought an apartment in Paris and have been able to arrange many of their professional engagements so they can sing in the same operas or the same theatres.

“We have been clear with the opera houses that it’s tempting for us to say yes to a production if they can offer the other person a role in a different production, or even so we can be in (nearby) cities,” Car said. “We are very grateful to our agents, and lucky that the houses we enjoy singing at seem to like both of us, which is quite rare.”

Future dates will see Car and Dupuis singing together in La Traviata and Faust in Marseilles, Eugene Onegin again in Berlin and Don Giovanni in Paris.

Car said her voice had matured since she gave birth to Noah, and she was learning new roles suitable for her in operas by Verdi, including Desdemona in Otello and Elisabeth in Don Carlo.

In Australia next year, Car will appear in a concert performance of Peter Grimes with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and in a recital tour with Dupuis and pianist Jayson Gillham.