Ziyi Dai
Soprano

The Chinese soprano Ziyi Dai was a member of the International Opera Studio of the Zurich Opera, where she sang roles including Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos , Marzelline in Beethoven’s Fidelio and La Comtesse in Rossini’s Le comte Ory .

This summer 2026 she will make her debut as Zerbinetta at the Salzburg Festival this summer. Other future engagements will take Ziyi Dai back to the Zurich Opera and for a debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago in principal roles. She made her debut as Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the National Theatre in Prague. She subsequently sang this role at the Zurich Opera in Andreas Homoki’s production and at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. At the Buxton Festival, she appeared as Amina in Bellini’s La sonnambula .

She has also collaborated with orchestras including the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. At Carnegie Hall and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, she performed in a concert series with her father, the renowned operatic tenor Yuqiang Dai, singing arias by Puccini, Verdi, and Lehár, as well as well-known Chinese folk songs.

She studied at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, as well as at the Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music in New York. She participated in masterclasses with, among others, Javier Camarena, Enza Ferrari, Eric Owens, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, and is a prize winner of the Huang Long Music Festival, the Premiere Opera Foundation Singing Competition, and the Daniel Biaggi Prize of Palm Beach Opera.