From one stage to another, this Labrador Straits singer is pursuing her operatic ambition

A singer from the Labrador Straits has set her sights on a career in opera, and it's something she's approaching with determination.

Michaela Cabot, 23, is currently completing her last year of a bachelor of music program at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. Cabot, a mezzo soprano, said it took her three tries to get accepted into the voice performance and opera program, and she's glad didn't give up.

"If you are certain about something, if you want to pursue something, if it's something that you're passionate about, do not stop until you are there," Cabot told CBC Radio.

"Do not let anything come between you and what you want to do." 

A self-described "theatre kid," she said music has been a major part of her life since she was a child.

"I remember singing karaoke when I was three. I remember listening to country music and folk music in my parents' house. I remember my dad always used to play guitar in our living room," she said.

"Singing for me has always been just a way of expressing myself, a way of re-contextualizing the world around me."

She also threw herself into the Labrador Creative Arts Festival while she was growing up, as well as drama and musical theatre.

"I've always loved being on stage."

Cabot was raised in L'Anse au Loup, but it was only when her family moved to Happy Valley-Goose Bay that she started singing in a choir and learned to find her own voice.

At Memorial University she started taking formal voice lessons from a graduate student.

"I'd been playing saxophone until that point. I vastly preferred playing instruments but I took one voice lesson with him and I was like, 'Wow, I really just want to do this for the rest of my life.'"

From there, Cabot said she found herself focusing on opera, adding that the more she learned about operatic performances and the stories they tell, the deeper in love she fell with the art form.

"I would say the biggest thing that influences my passion about opera is the fact that it's so dramatic, theatrical," she said. "There's so much you can do with it."

Her studies also brought her to Italy for a two-week summer program

Her next goal is to get accepted into a master's program, and she recently auditioned for the University of Toronto's.

Dream role

Cabot already has picked out the ultimate role she wants to perform on stage.

"It's gonna sound insane, but Julius Caesar. I want to play Julius Caesar in Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt so bad," she said, adding she likes seeing positions of power played by women and non-binary performers.

"There are so many ... people who continue to create such a wonderful space to explore these stories and create such wonderful lenses to perceive them through," she said.

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