Vivica Genaux was born on July 10, 1969 in Fairbanks. Her father was a biochemistry professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her Mexico-born mother was a language teacher. She began her vocal studies as a young girl with late American dramatic soprano Dorothy Dow. Ms. Genaux then studied with the late Nicola Rossi-Lemeni and Virginia Zeani at Indiana University Bloomington and for many years with Claudia Pinza Bozzolla (daughter of bass Ezio Pinza) in Pittsburgh. She began her professional career specializing in charming portrayals of Rossini comic heroines (Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, Angelina in La Cenerentola). She has performed these roles more than two hundred times with many of the major U.S. opera companies (including the Metropolitan, San Francisco, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Minnesota Operas), as well as in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dresden, Munich, Montreal, Tel Aviv, Verona, Santiago and Perth.

Her official debut took place in Florence in October 1994 as Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri.