Danielle De Niese, Soprano
Biography

Danielle de Niese's "sweet, gleaming soprano," "phenomenal musicality" and "sharply comic, yet utterly moving acting," combined with youth and physical presence, have brought her to the edge of a spectacular career. At only 30 years of age, the Australian-born American singer regularly graces many of the world's most prestigious opera and concert stages, and has an exclusive contract with Decca Records. Her debut solo album, Handel Arias was released to international acclaim in 2007 and her much anticipated second recording, The Mozart Album, is due out internationally this fall.

Ms. de Niese's career got off to a prestigious start when, at age 18, she became the youngest singer ever to enter the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.  A year later she made her house debut as Barbarina in a new Jonathan Miller production of Le nozze di Figaro in a cast featuring Renee Fleming, Bryn Terfel, and Cecilia Bartoli, and led by James Levine.  Soon after came important operatic debuts with the Netherlands Opera, the Saito Kinen Festival, and the Paris Opera.  But it was her portrayal of Cleopatra in a David McVicar production of Handel's Giulio Cesare for her 2005 Glyndebourne Festival debut that brought her to true international acclaim.  The New York Times hailed de Niese's performance, writing, "Her singing is utterly delectable and completely assured...Sheer 'joie de vivre' and mastery come spilling across, to the eyes as well as the ears."  

Since then Ms. de Niese has enjoyed operatic successes on the stages of  the Paris Opera, Zurich Opera, Netherlands Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago among many others. Orchestral engagements have included appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

In the 2009-10 season Ms. de Niese returns to the Metropolitan Opera in the same production of Le nozze di Figaro where she made her house debut but this this time as Susanna.  Other important opera engagements this season include L'incoronazione di Poppea with the Teatro Real, Semele with Theâtre des Champs Elysees, as well as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Lyric Opera of Chicago under the direction of Edward Gardner. Additionally, Ms. de Niese will tour Europe with the period instrument group Il giardino armonico with an all Handel program with performances in Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin and Madrid among others. She will make her debut in Prague with the Philharmonia under the direction of  Jakub Hrusa.

Australian-born to parents of Sri Lankan and Dutch heritage, Danielle de Niese grew up in Los Angeles.  The soprano has been captivating audiences since childhood, when she was a fixture of Los Angeles local television hosting a weekly arts showcase for teenagers, for which she won an Emmy Award.  Trained in dance and piano as well as music at the famed Colburn School in Los Angeles, she participated in the Tanglewood, Aspen and Marlboro summer programs before coming to New York in 1997 to attend the Mannes School of Music.

Recently the Netherlands Opera awarded Ms. de Niese their "Prix d'Amis" which is an honor bestowed upon the artist who their audience votes as the past season's favorite performer. Ms. de Niese is the recipient of the 2008 Echo Award's New Artist of the Year, the 2008 Orphee D'Or given by the Academie Du Disque Lyrique, and was nominated for the 2009 Classical Brit Award for female artist of the year, all for her debut album, Handel Arias.

Critical Acclaim:

 

The Mozart Album

“Danielle de Niese is a serious artist with a dramatic, agile voice and heaps of charm and charisma.”
WQXR 105.9FM, November 2009

“That the gorgeous Danielle de Niese is a creature of the theater with a brain and a fascinating timbre is pretty clear by now. Anyone who has seen her live can only marvel at how comfortable she is moving, acting, pouting, dancing, singing, laughing, crying--indeed, interpreting. And if truth be told, every word she sings is imbued with meaning and she's perfectly visible, even on audio recordings. She sings with more "face" than anyone since Tito Gobbi. If the world were looking for a cross between Halle Berry and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, she would be it.
Robert Levine, Classics Today, September 2009

“De Niese has a voice made for Mozart: bright, beautiful, agile and creamy, yet with a glint of metal in the top end. She didn't want this record to be your standard assortment of hit arias. Instead, she selected lesser-known numbers, even a couple of non-operatic pieces in an effort to make the record sound fresh.”
Npational Public Radio, August 2009

 

Handel Arias

“A voice seductive enough to woo gods as well as mortals. This is Handel in all his unabashed glory, and there is nothing restrained about Ms. de Niese's warmly voluptuous and passionate singing.”
Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times, October 14, 2007

 “Danielle de Niese is a stunner: imagine Jennifer Beals with Audra McDonald’s radiant smile. The Australia-born, Los Angeles–raised soprano, still in her twenties, can also act and dance up a storm.”
David Shengold, Time Out New York, May 2008

“de Niese's voice is powerful, bright, clear, and very agile. She writes many of her own ornamentations, and seems to have a lot of fun singing them—no wallflower she. On this recording she comes across as a lively, spontaneous, but intense singing actress—a different kind of intensity from that manifested in Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's Handel-aria recital on Avie SACD. Hunt Lieberson's intensity was an intense stillness; de Niese's intensity almost bursts out of the speaker cabinets.”
John Marks, Stereophile, April 2008
“The lithe soprano showcases her way with Handel in the first-class company of period-instrument maven William Christie. She sounds fully up for the florid emotions in "Giulio Cesare in Egitto," but it's her intimacy in a rarity from "Amadigi di Gaula" and the famously sighing melody of "Lascia ch'io Pianga" from "Rinaldo" that will melt hearts.”
Bradley Bambarger, The Star-Ledger, October 16, 2007

“This meteoric new soprano puts on quite a show, displaying her ability to suggest different moods and personalities through both virtuoso agility and tonal fullness and showing skill in embellishing da capo sections.”
John Barker, American Record Guide, Jan/Feb 2008

“She has the agility to manage Handel's coloratura pyrotechnics with lightness and security, and is equally at home in the emotional gravity of the laments, to which she brings real depth and pathos… de Niese's spectacular recital should be of interest to fans of Baroque opera, and of intelligent, emotionally honest coloratura singing.”
Stephen Eddins, Barnes and Noble Online, November 2007

“The voice is substantial, her agility impressive, her commitment to and apparent enjoyment of the music a pleasure to hear. Her vibrato is warm and attractive. Her presence as a "performer" is vivid and intelligent.”
Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com, November 2007

 

Le Poisson Rouge Recital, October 2009

“Soprano Danielle de Niese knocked them dead.”

Liz Smith, Variety, October 7, 2009

 

North American Recital Tour 2009

“Her voice wove spells in these strange vocal tales… she sang with a sense of nuance worthy of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. I’m not sure there is anything de Niese couldn’t do.”

Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2009

 

“Danielle de Niese certainly knows how to sell a song. From the outset, de Niese demonstrated a strong penchant for acting, evidence of her meteoric rise to popularity in opera houses around the world…she displayed an attractive, burnished tone with a vibrato that was rather thick at times. Her playful presence was thoroughly engaging.”

Timothy McDonald, Kansas City Star, February 4, 2009

 

Festival del Sole (Giulio Cesare), July 2007

“de Niese performed on a level of personal best and beyond.”

Janos Gereben, San Francisco Examiner, July 17, 2007

 

“…[de Niese] was charming and witty, as she easily tossed off the considerable runs and trills, separating each note in razor-sharp staccatos…de Niese…is an emphatic, physical force. She uses her considerable beauty, large eyes, and flashing smile to win over her listeners. She is also a singer of considerable achievement, bringing pity and pathos to her “Piangeró la sorte mia” (I shall weep for my fate) when Caesar takes her prisoner, and delivering its long-limbed legato with great feeling and dignity.”

James Keolker, San Francisco Classical Voice, July 14, 2007

 

Le Nozze di Figaro-Lyric Opera of Chicago

De Niese was a playful and crafty Susanna, her devastating physical charms making her a most desirable quarry for the lecherous Count. The soprano fully inhabited her character, delivering a luminous "Deh! Vieni non tardar" in the final act when Figaro's new bride means to enflame his jealousy by suggesting she's about to have a tryst with the Count in the gazebo of his country estate
Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein

I have to admit that I was worried current Metropolitan Opera darling and Chicago Opera Theater discovery Danielle de Niese might be too coquettish as Susanna. My fears were wholly misplaced. The soprano gave one of her best performances to date -- expressive, yes, but never overacting and with an enviable fidelity to both score and text. As is her mistress the Countess, her Susanna is a woman both clever and wise.
Chicago Sun Times, Andrew Patner

Soprano Danielle de Niese, the reigning Mozart soprano extraordinaire, is a sexy Susanna who not only sings rapturously but who brings layers of meaning to her every action.
New City Stage, Denis Polkow

As the maid Susanna, gifted soprano Danielle de Niese—impressive in 2007's Giulio Cesare—was effervescently charismatic, and particularly expressive in the final act's "Deh! Vieni, Non Tardar."
Chicago Reader, Barbara Yaross

As the maid, Susanna, the object of his non-platonic affections, Danielle de Niese was the other standout. In a role that soprano ingenues often tend to walk through, de Niese showed her vaunted star quality, her flashing-eyed, vixenish Susanna making it clear that Figaro probably has good reason to keep tabs on his flirtatious fiancee. If her animated expressions and vivid characterization at times flirted with excess, the charismatic soprano was consistently alive to the text, responding to every twist and turn of da Ponte’s rapid-fire action. De Niese sang beautifully, her bright, youthful voice technically faultless, with her expressive Deh! vieni, non tardar a highlight of the performance.
Chicago Classical Review, Lawrence A. Johnson

Danielle de Niese commands the stage as the spirited and beautiful Susanna. She captures our hearts with her charm and her strong magnetic appeal. Her soprano soars.
Chicago Critic, Tom Williams

Danielle de Niese, as the maid Susanna, is a lot of fun to watch and yet sounds beautiful too. Her facial expressions and body language sell her character's awkward situations in equal proportion to the words she is singing.
Beyond Words, Evan Kuchar

It also helps that the cast for this production is ideal. Soprano Danielle de Niese, who held the Lyric audience in rapture when she played a very sensual Cleopatra in "Julius Caesar" a few years ago, returns to the Lyric as Susanna, the smart and sexy maid whom all the men want.
Opera Review, Betty Mohr

Danielle de Niese, as the maid Susanna, is a lot of fun to watch and yet sounds beautiful too. Her facial expressions and body language sell her character's awkward situations in equal proportion to the words she is singing.
                                                                        Chicago Now, Evan Kuchar

 

Le Nozze di Figaro-Metropolitan Opera

“Danielle de Niese, who made her Met debut in this production as Barbarina in 1998, has now taken over the kingpin role of Susanna, to which her modest-sized but well-projected lyric soprano, with it’s slightly smoky timbre and graceful phrasing, is naturally suited. Perhaps because she is petite and charming, she over-relied on cute soubrette mannerisms, which can grow tiresome in so long and active an assignment. Fortunately, there were other arrows in her quiver. With a level head she judged how and when to manipulate the infatuated Count, not pushing her luck but gambling towards a goal. Her access to deeper emotional levels became clear in “Deh vieni, non tardar”, where she expressed sincere passion for Figaro which still exaggerating enough (since he was within earshot) to fire up his jealousy.”
Opera News, John W. Freeman

“Most notably Danielle de Niese, a natural comic actress, in her first Met Susanna, brought an ebullient playfulness to the role, particularly in her scenes with Cheribino and the Countess.  But she was not just a comedian; in her scenes with the Count she conveys the sense that beneath her flirtatiousness Susanna knows she is playing with fire and is constantly recalculating her moves.
Ms. de Niese’s lyric soprano has a good, solid top supported by a firm middle range that yields full, if not especially loud, rounded tone that can be momentarily disconcerting if you expect the bright soubrette voice that has become the norm in this role.  But Ms. de Niese recast Susanna in her own image and was at her most persuasive in her passionate account of “Deh! Vieni, non tardar,” in the final act.”
The New York Times, Allan Kozinn

“Of chief interest Tuesday night were soprano Danielle de Niese’s first Susanna at the Met and the company debut s of soprano Emma Bell as the Countess and conductor Dan Ettinger.  There were only cheers at the end.

De Niese made her company debut in the far smaller role of Barbarina when this production premiered.  She is now a rising star and was charming as Susann, with an expressive face and a soaring sweet voice.
She toned down the hamming that Cecilia Bartoli used effectively in the original cast.  De Niese even seemed a bit interested in the Count’s advances, making goo-goo eyes, adding complexity to the role.”
Associated Press, Ronald Blum

 

“Danielle really embodies a great direction for opera: not only is she young and gorgeous, she represents a new demographic and a broader appeal.”

ClassicalTV News, Colin Schoenberger

 

L’ incoranazione di Poppea

 “De Niese brings an easy bedroom physicality to the part, and a voice as silken as the shimmery little slip she wears. She also exploits an alluring and distinctive touch of smokiness in her sound.”
Bloomberg News, Warwick Thompson
 
“Danielle de Niese’s beauty queen Poppea is a rare sight on an opera stage and the voice is excellent too”
Financial Times,Francis Carlin

“Danielle de Niese’s Poppea is an absolute knockout.  If the American soprano isn’t the most luscious-looking singing actress ever to have portrayed opera’s first sex bomb, one would be hard to name a superior.  Her bad girl poses come straight out of an MTV video, while her revealing negligees would make Janet Jackson blush.  Did I mention she sings ravishingly too, with all the floating sensuous lyricism the role demands?”
Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein

“The Poppea of Danielle de Niese was a sultry bombshell with both killer curves and a succulent, high flying soprano. De Niese and Maniaci were an incendiary pair, both vocally and in terms of drama.  Her soprano was penetrating and agile, with a hint of smoke ideally suited to the scheming courtesan.  Leaning into her dissonant notes, she turned Monteverdi’s melodies into perfectly calibrated caresses… De Niese’s Poppea plotted her moves with the cool savvy of a chess champion…”
Chicago Sun-Times,Wynne Delacome

“Soprano Danielle de Niese is a blazing talent who can manipulate her beautiful, lilting, arching voice to interpret text like dialogue in a play.”
Toronto’s Classical Music Station,Paula Citron

“But it had an amazing, sexy young soprano named Danielle de Niese in the title role: She looks like a pop diva, but sings like a real one.”
St. Louis Today, Sarah Bryan Miller

Giulio Cesare - Lyric Opera of Chicago 2007
“Making her Lyric Opera debut, the young soprano Danielle de Niese was an extraordinary presence as Cleopatra. She sang with power and clarity, and imaginatively ornamented intricate lines even while engaged in Mr. George’s playful dances. Ms. de Niese subtly captured every facet of a role that required her to be a ruthless schemer, a ravishing seductress, a pitiable victim and a fierce opponent.”
Steve Smith, New York Times
 
“As Cleopatra, soprano Danielle de Niese manages not only to navigate and tame every florid passage, she does so most of the time while dancing. This Cleopatra is entirely believable as a love object, a lover, and a fiercely political leader…”
Andrew Patner, Chicago Sun-Times

“You might start with Danielle de Niese, a Cleopatra so sex-kitten-seductive that no red-blooded Roman general could possibly resist her… strikingly beautiful to look at and to listen to… she was such a magnetic presence at the Lyric premiere of Handel's 1724 masterpiece Friday at the Civic Opera House that you couldn't take your eyes off her if you tried.”
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune

“Central to the show's success is its ravishing Cleopatra, soprano Danielle de Niese, who can sing brilliant ornaments and dance at the same time… The astonishing Ms. de Niese, whose brilliant high notes and creamy, effortless legato carried through no matter how much oxygen she required for her dancing, captured Cleopatra's progression from flirt and seductress to a woman capable of despair and dignity.”
Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal

“…the opera should be titled Cleopatra, especially when Danielle de Niese is singing the role of the ultimate seductress. What a voice, what an actress so beautifully costumed. As she sings, one's mind races in anticipation of a future casting of her at the Lyric…”
Jim Edwards, The Beacon News

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream at Chicago Opera Theatre

"In addition to being glamorous, De Niese is a stage natural with a thrillingly bright and flexible soprano she can use for any effect she likes."
Wall Street Journal, Heidi Waleson 

"De Niese, well remembered for her entrancing Poppea last season, could be the opera world’s answer to Beyonce. With curves a fashion model would envy and coloratura as glittery as the festive vines that festoon the stage, this fairy queen exeded pure sex through her body language as well as her singing.."
Chicago Tribune, John Von Rhein