Helly H. Sapinski

Sapinski, Helly H.

Helly H. Sapinski. Soprano, b Neuendorf, Ukraine ca 1935. She moved to Germany as a child and studied music and drama at the Hanover Theatre School. In 1955 she emigrated to Canada and settled in Winnipeg, where her teachers included Sara Boroditsky Udow and Nina Dempsey (voice) and Frans Niermeier (piano and theory). She won numerous awards, including the Rose Bowl of the Manitoba (Winnipeg) Music Competition Festival and the MRMTA Scholarship (1959). In 1961 she received honourable mention in the Metropolitan Opera's mid-west regional auditions. Moving to Toronto in the early 1960s she studied 1962-5 with Irene Jessner. She made her COC debut in 1964 as Flora in La Traviata. Other COC roles have included Liù in Turandot (1965), Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana (1966), Leonora in Il Trovatore (1967), Sieglinde in Die Walküre (1971), and Leonore in Fidelio (1973). She performed in Verdi's Requiem with the Winnipeg and Edmonton SOs, and has appeared with the TS. She received Canada Council grants in 1968 and 1969 to tour in Germany, where she has performed extensively, singing leading roles with companies at Düsseldorf (Madama Butterfly), Essen (Così fan tutte, The Fairy Queen, La Forza del Destino, Madama Butterfly, and Tannhäuser), Kassel (Così fan tutte), and Münster (The Bartered Bride, The Marriage of Figaro, and Tannhäuser). She began to teach privately in Toronto in the mid-1970s; in 1991 she remained active as a soloist and teacher.