Nicole Heaston

Nicole Heaston is an American soprano.

She was raised in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, and grew up listening to Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Gladys Knight, as well as choral and classical music in church. She attended Kenwood Academy, where her choir teacher Lena McLin encouraged her to pursue opera, pointing to William Warfield, Leontyne Price, and Shirley Verrett as earlier examples of Black opera singers. Subsequently, she started an apprenticeship with the Houston Grand Opera, and debuted in a production of Romeo and Juliet. She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni. She has sung the role of the Countess in the Marriage of Figaro in the Boston Lyric Opera and the San Francisco Opera.

She sang the lead role in The Listeners in its world premiere with the Norwegian National Opera in 2022, and in its Chicago premiere at the Lyric Opera in 2025.