Car attended StrathmoreSecondary School, where she performed in school musicals. In Year 12 she sang at the Victorian Schools' Spectacular, singing jazz songs from the 1930s and 40s. At age 17, Car saw her first opera, Tosca, in her final year of high school in Melbourne. She then completed a Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, rather than the legal degree her parents had hoped for.
Career
Car's debut in a major role was singing Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Victorian Opera in 2009. Her American debut was singing the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at Dallas Opera in 2014, a role she had previously performed for Opera Australia. Other roles for Opera Australia include the title parts of La traviata, Thaïs and Luisa Miller ; Fiordiligi, Tatyana, Micaëla, Mimi, Marguerite, Pamina, Leila, and both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira. She has also performed Donna Anna for West Australian Opera and Adalgisa in Norma for Victorian Opera Melbourne. In 2019 Car visited Australia to sing the role of Ellen in a recital version of the Benjamin Britten opera Peter Grimes with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. While there, she and her husband also performed a series of concerts together. In the 2019/2020 season, she will be back performing at the Sydney Opera House singing Tatyana to Étienne Dupuis' Eugene Onegin. They also performed together in Eugene Onegin at the Montreal Opera House in 2019, Car making her Canadian debut. Car made her Covent Garden debut in 2015, singing Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen, followed by Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and a new production of La bohème as Mimì in the 2017/18 season. In 2020 she returns to the Royal Opera House as Mimì. Car had previously performed the role of Micaëla for Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour in 2013. In Germany, Car performed at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Car is back at Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2020 singing the title role of Thaïs alongside Étienne Dupuis. In a review of her first recording, The Kiss, Car's voice is described as possessing "a lovely lyric soprano". Car made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the role of Mimì in September 2018, receiving critical acclaim from The New York Times for her "fine-grained tone and nuanced acting". She returned to the Met in 2020 as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. Performances at the Paris Opera have included Tatyana, Mimì, Micaëla and her role debut as Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo in the 2019/2020 season. She also sang the role of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni in a new production at the Paris Opera which was broadcast by many international cinemas.
At 21, while in her final year at the Victorian College of the Arts, Car won the 2007 Herald Sun Aria, performing arias by Verdi and Puccini. In making the announcement, chief adjudicator Anson Austin said she has "a wonderful talent and a most beautiful voice".
In 2013 Car won joint first prize in the Neue Stimmen vocal competition held in Germany.
