The Austrians love her. The Germans love her. And after witnessing her career-defining performance two summers ago at Bavaria’s legendary Bayreuth Festival, the media loves her, too. The Guardian declared her “radiantly sung Sieglinde” in Wagner’s Die Walküre to be the night’s highlight. Die Zeit hailed her as “the Sieglinde of our time.” She’s sung at the Met and La Scala. Yet Adrianne Pieczonka’s place in the operatic firmament remains a bit of a mystery at home—the 44-year-old soprano isn’t as easily recognized as Measha Bruegger­gosman, she of the irrepressible hair, or the glamorous Isabel Bayrakdarian. But with an 18-year European career under her belt (six in Vienna, 12 in London) and a seasoned, expressive voice, it would be wrong to say Pieczonka has just arrived. It may just be that everyone else is finally catching up.

We’re sitting in the kitchen of the Annex Victorian she shares with her wife, mezzo-soprano Laura Tucker, and their two-year-old daughter, Grace. Dressed in a tank top and shorts, she doesn’t exactly look the part of an opera star. Despite all the accolades, at the moment she is more excited about being nominated to her former high school’s wall of distinction. Born in New York state but raised in Burlington, Pieczonka doesn’t come from a particularly musical clan. One brother owns hot tub companies; the other is an animator and painter. Her sister is a doctor. And their father, a Polish immigrant who grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, is a retired engineer and entrepreneur. It’s their mother, an actor throughout university, whom Pieczonka credits with giving her the performance bug. A ham in class, she starred in all the school productions—at 12, she played Mr. Bumble in Oliver! and surprised everyone with the size and quality of her young voice. The music performance program at Western followed; her yearbook blurb read, “I will be an international opera singer”—a bravado-filled proclamation that, despite its accuracy, she now finds embarrassing. But it was this youthful confidence and drive that led Pieczonka to enroll in U of T’s opera school and, mere months after graduation, try her luck in Europe. “My first year in Vienna was my baptism by fire. I never thought of leaving, but I do remember going home bawling.” Her perseverance paid off, and by her late 20s, she was performing major roles in important houses.

After Bayreuth, Pieczonka’s profile skyrocketed, but the opera community had caught on long ago. The COC’s late general director, Richard Bradshaw, had already invited her to appear at the Four Seasons Centre’s opening gala in June 2006; and she was asked to reprise her Sieglinde in the COC’s wildly anticipated Ring Cycle three months later. A few days before the revival, she had an epiphany: while playing tennis at her Georgian Bay cottage, she sprained her ankle, jeopardizing her upcoming appearance. “It made The New York Times. I was like, Oh my god. Maybe this is the sign that I’m famous. They’ve written about my stupid ankle.”

Pieczonka is as forthcoming about her ambitions as she is about the price of success. She’s on the road up to nine months of the year (“The excitement of seeing the world has worn off”). And she’s frank about the challenges of being in a relationship with a fellow singer, especially one who has taken time off to have their child and is just getting back into the business (they’ll perform together at the COC in December). “Laura gets it, which is great,” says Pieczonka, “but there are always those pangs when she opens the paper and I’m splashed across the page.”

Of course, it’s her job to be in the spotlight. She’s appearing as Elisabeth de Valois in the COC’s production of the original, five-act Gallic version of Verdi’s Don Carlos, starting October 12. Up to now, Pieczonka has paced herself, taking a slow-burn ap­proach to her career by putting off roles that might not be good showcases. But with her voice maturing, getting bigger and more dramatic, doors are opening. One of them, perhaps, will lead to another long-coveted part, the titular heroine in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. There is also talk of performing at the Paris Opera in three years. “It’s kind of perverse, being asked to think about 2011 or 2012. What will I be doing? Will I even be alive? What will be going on with Grace? When I get world weary, tired of the grind, I sometimes want to pack it in. It can be hard,” she says, “but these are my years.”