Venera Gimadieva

The Russian soprano Venera Gimadieva made a splash at major opera houses in Britain and the U.S. in the mid-2010s with a light coloratura soprano voice well suited to bel canto repertory. She has also performed Russian and French opera. Gimadieva was born in Kazan in Russia's Tatarstan region, then part of the Soviet Union, on May 28, 1984. Her parents, an educator and a military officer, had no particular orientation toward music, but she took up singing at the age of 11 for enjoyment and was heard by some of her teachers at school. They teamed up to give her the best vocal...