Danielle de Niese
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Danielle de Niese (b. 1980) is an Australian-born soprano now residing in the United States, of Sri Lankan and Dutch heritage.
After winning a number of singing competitions at an early age in her native Australia, de Niese moved with her family to Los Angeles where she made her professional operatic debut at the age of 15 with Los Angeles Opera. She became the youngest singer ever to participate in the Young Artists Studio at the Metropolitan Opera, where she debuted 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 Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges.
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[citation needed] at major opera houses around the world, to Broadway (Les Misérables) and film (the 2001 Hannibal movie) roles.
She has recently 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 and 2006, and in the same production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2007.
At the end of 2006, when the Nederlandse Opera staged the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas directed by Ingo Metzmacher, de Niese sang Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Despina in Cosi fan tutte.
[edit] Recordings
She has signed an exclusive recording deal with the Decca Music Group. Her debut album, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, is entitled Handel Arias.
