Maayan Licht was two years old when he discovered he loved making sounds. His instrument of choice? The family microwave.
The Israeli toddler would mimic its hum, over and over, delighting in the noise he could produce. It was an unconventional start. But then nothing about Licht’s trajectory has been conventional.
Today, he is one of the most talked-about voices in classical music. A sopranista, meaning a male singer with the natural range and agility of a soprano, Licht performs the exceptionally difficult repertoire originally written for the legendary castrati of the 17th and 18th centuries. Think stratospheric high notes, dizzying vocal runs and the kind of technical fireworks that leave audiences open-mouthed.
But there’s something that makes Licht different from every other serious classical musician working the international circuit. More than 100 million people have watched him do it on TikTok.
“I never sat down and thought, ‘Okay, now I’m going to become a content creator,'” Licht told The AJN. “I simply started sharing videos of myself singing, especially the crazy coloratura, high notes and trills that I love doing. Some of them suddenly went viral and reached millions of people.”
Born in a small town near Tel Aviv, Licht’s extraordinary high voice was identified early by a local teacher who began his formal training, before he went on to study early music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
Since then, his career has moved fast. He has performed at some of Europe’s most prestigious venues, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Theater an der Wien in Vienna and the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival. His stage roles have ranged from Achille in Porpora’s Ifigenia in Aulide to Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, and in 2025 he took out the Best Newcomer award at the International Opera Awards.
Yet for all the accolades, what really sets Licht apart is how unstuffy he is about the whole enterprise. His social media is a joyful combination of backstage chaos, travel mishaps, silly jokes and jaw-dropping vocal performances. He is openly queer, proudly Israeli, and refreshingly unbothered by the idea that opera should be reverential.
“I love showing that an opera singer can sing Handel on stage at night and make ridiculous Instagram stories five minutes later,” he said.
The social media success was not calculated. Early in his career, Licht struggled with stage nerves. So he started filming his practice sessions and posting them.
“Strangely enough, knowing that millions of people had already heard me sing took away some of that pressure to prove myself,” he pointed out. “I became much more relaxed on stage and started enjoying performing even more.”
He said one of the best things about his social media presence is the feedback he gets from his audience. “Sometimes a teenager writes to me saying, ‘I never listened to opera before, but I heard your video and now I’m obsessed with this aria’. That makes me incredibly happy,” he said.
That enjoyment is contagious. His concerts have a reputation for being anything but a standard recital. He talks to the audience, plays with the music and brings the kind of charisma that makes centuries-old arias feel electric.
“I want them to leave thinking, ‘I had no idea a human voice could do that!'” Licht said of his audiences. “If someone comes because they already love Baroque music, amazing. But if someone comes because they saw a crazy guy singing high notes on TikTok and this is their first classical concert, even better.”
He is passionate about making classical music feel less gatekept.
“You don’t need to know anything about Baroque music to hear an insane coloratura aria and think, ‘What the hell was that?!'” he says.
Beyond the opera house, Licht has thrown himself into genre-crossing projects. He headlined CarMEN, a queer reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen featuring drag performers at the Concertgebouw, and is part of Technopera, a project merging electronic music with operatic singing. His upcoming Australian programme features everything from Vivaldi and Handel to a mashup of Handel and Beyonce, a Hebrew work from the oratorio Ester by Cristiano Giuseppe, and the Habanera from Carmen.
Now based between The Hague and Tel Aviv, Licht splits his time between European stages and his Israeli roots. He has never performed in Australia before, and he is not hiding his excitement.
“It’s actually my first time in Australia, so the fact that I’m coming all the way from Europe and people have already bought all the tickets is a little crazy to me,” he said. “I’ve been told Australians are fun, so the expectations are high!”
Maayan Licht will perform Coloratura Queen with Live at Yours from August 11 to 15, with shows at The Great Synagogue in Sydney, and Toorak Synagogue in Melbourne. For more, visit liveatyours.com.au
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