Note: Nicholas Dieux is part of a small group of high-achieving seniors who are being highlighted in our 2025 Hatter Headliners series.

From portraying Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro to Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus and Sir Lancelot du Lac in Camelot, Nicholas Dieux wore many hats during his time at Stetson.

“My four years here were just perfect,” Dieux said. “Coming to Stetson and being able to take classes that were solely built around the thing I love most was the best thing ever. Since my first day at Stetson, I was a sponge.”

Being a sponge served Dieux well. In between all the fundamentals — such as music theory, sight singing, aural training, piano, conducting and diction classes for singers — he had to learn during his first two years, along with his music classes later, he absorbed knowledge that proved useful when searching for experiential learning opportunities.

“Summer of my freshman year, I got to go to Germany, England and Wales with the Chamber Orchestra and Choir through the WORLD program,” he said. “We got to sing some music where (George Frideric) Handel and (Johann Sebastian) Bach were born and where they played music. I also got to sing a recital in Wales, which was really fun. It was my first time in Europe, so it was a treat.”

In the summer of 2024, Dieux made his international debut singing Papageno in Lyric Opera Studio Weimar‘s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without Stetson’s professional development fund, which gave me the financial support needed to study the role in Germany,” he said. “And, because of my training at Stetson, I was able to form a network of directors and coaches in Germany, allowing me to return to Weimar this summer and reprise the role of Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.”

Opera Orlando and Stetson

In the Fall 2024 semester, Dieux was one of four students from the Stetson School of Music to be selected for the Opera Orlando Apprentice Artists program — a partnership between the university and Opera Orlando that allows singers to earn college credit while providing a platform “for undergraduate voice students to gain performance experience with a professional company while working alongside and learning from Opera Orlando staff and guest artists.”

“I was part of the second year of this program alongside three other colleagues,” he noted. “We got to perform in main stage productions with Opera Orlando, which was wonderful.”

Can there be a better example of Hatter Ready than Stetson students singing alongside opera singers? Doubtful. And Dieux is living proof of how well Hatters tackle real-life experiences and excel at it.

“It was amazing to be a part of a professional company and see what the industry is like,” Dieux commented. “Stetson prepared us well for that. It was so incredible to see professionals in the zone during rehearsal, so focused and really trying to grasp all that was being thrown at them. I was standing in the back and was thinking, ‘How cool is this? I’m a senior in college and I’m here.’

“We appeared in Verdi’s Macbeth, and got to be a part of Verdi’s Requiem,” he added. “That’s not something you see at a lot of other schools. Not even graduate schools’ programs give you the opportunity to put in your resume that you sang with a professional opera company during your studies. So, it was really wonderful.”

Recognitions

During his junior year, Dieux — as any other junior student in the School of Music — was tasked with putting together a 30-minute junior recital. He chose to curate a recital that told the story of a wanderer who sought for an unknown land to find emotional salvation.

“It was a big reflection of myself,” Dieux explained. “The story was all created by myself, and it was a direct representation of where I was in that part of my life. … I wanted to create something captivating for the audience, but I felt like it was me the entire time.”  

For that recital, Dieux was awarded the Maris Award for Undergraduate Research. He was the winner of the Southeast Region National Teachers of Singing (SERNATS) in 2022 and placed second in the male category of the Florida Federation of Music Clubs (FFMC) Collegiate Vocal Competition in 2023.

Dieux — who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance — was the selected keynote speaker for the School of Music at the 2025 Spring Commencement. His speech encouraged all his fellow classmates to always be evergreen.

“I was so, so grateful,” he said. “I realized that I needed to make this count and share a story that was real and uplifting.”

Moving Forward

Dieux will become a Louisiana State University Tiger come fall, as he will be pursuing his master’s degree in Opera Performance. However, if one thing rings true for Dieux, it’s that he always will be a Stetson Hatter. During his senior recital during the Spring 2025 semester, he concluded his repertoire with the song “If Ever I Would Leave You” from the opera Camelot.

“The song represents my relationship with my grandmother, but it also represents my time at Stetson and how wonderful this place has been to me,” he said. “And, it’s just a song of devotion that no matter what seasons pass, I’ll never leave this place.”

– Andrea Mujica