Danielle de Niese

Danielle de Niese (born 11 April 1979) is a lyric soprano. After success as a young child in singing competitions in Australia, she moved to the USA where she developed an operatic career. She has come to widespread public attention with her performances as Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne, England, in 2005.

Early life

De Niese was born in Melbourne, Australia, after her parents, Chris and Beverly, had migrated from Sri Lanka to Australia as teenagers — she is of Sri Lankan Burgher heritage.^[1] In 1988, at the age of 9, she became the youngest ever winner of the Australian TV programme Young Talent Time, singing a Whitney Houston medley, for which the prize was A$ 5,000 and a Yamaha baby grand piano, which she still owns.^[1]

In 1990, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she became a regular guest host of the TV programme L.A. Kids for which she won an Emmy Award at the age of 16.^[2]

Operatic career

De Niese made her professional operatic debut at the age of 15 with the Los Angeles Opera. She became the youngest singer ever to participate in the Young Artists Studio at the Metropolitan Opera,^[3] where she debuted in 1998 at the age of 19 as Barbarina in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro directed by Jonathan Miller and conducted by James Levine. She was subsequently asked to perform the title role in the Met's production of Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges. Other Met roles include Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare (2007), Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice (2009), and Susanna in the same production of Le Nozze di Figaro in which she sang Barbarina in 1998.^[4]

De Niese's still growing career has ranged through early Baroque music (Poppea in L'incoronazione di Poppea), via Handel, Mozart and contemporary opera premieres (RAAFF by Robin de Raaff, 2004, De Nederlandse Opera)^[5] at major opera houses around the world, to Broadway (Les Misérables) and film (Hannibal) roles.

She has appeared in productions of a number of Baroque operas on stage and on DVD, for example the Les Arts Florissants production of Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau, and as Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare, directed by David McVicar, at Glyndebourne in 2005, 2006 and 2009, and in the same production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2007.

At the end of 2006, when De Nederlandse Opera staged the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, de Niese sang Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Despina in Così fan tutte.

Albums

• Handel Arias (2008)
• The Mozart Album (2009)
• Diva (2010) - released in the UK on 12 July 2010 ^[6] and in the US on 3 August 2010 ^[7]
• Beauty of the Baroque (2011), with Andreas Scholl, The English Concert conducted by Harry Bicket

Personal life

De Niese (called Danni by her friends and colleagues) married Gus Christie, grandson of John Christie and chairman of Glyndebourne Festival Opera,^[8] on 19 December 2009 in St Bartholomew-the-Great, London.^[9] Since her marriage she has lived at Glyndebourne in Sussex, England.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Chip Brown (16 September 2009). "Opera's Coolest Soprano". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20deniese-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 19 September 2009. 
2. ^ "Danielle de Niese: The slim lady sings" by Jessica Duchen, The Independent (16 April 2008)
3. ^ ClassicalTV interview (2009)
4. ^ Le nozze di Figaro, The Metropolitan Opera
5. ^ RAAFF recording at amazon.com
6. ^ Decca UK catalogue
7. ^ Amazon, US release date
8. ^ Chrissy Iley (28 March 2010). "Diva of the Downs Danielle de Niese". The Times. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/classical/article7076451.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1. Retrieved 9 July 2010. 
9. ^ "Diary for December 2009". St Bartholomew-the-Great. http://www.greatstbarts.com/Documents/Diary/09/1209.pdf. Retrieved 9 July 2010. 

External links

• Danielle de Niese – Official website
• Danielle de Niese - Official Myspace
• Excerpts from Handel Arias on YouTube
• Excerpts from The Mozart Album on YouTube
• Beauty of the Baroque: "Ombra mai fu" (G. F. Handel), "Pur ti miro" (from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, with Andreas Scholl), "Sich üben im Lieben" (from J. S. Bach's cantata Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, BWV 202
• Interview, The Metropolitan Opera
• Danielle de Niese at the Internet Movie Database
• Classical Archives Interview

Persondata
Name	de Niese, Danielle
Alternative names
Short description	Australian soprano
Date of birth	11 April 1979
Place of birth	Melbourne, Australia
Date of death
Place of death