Natalie Dessay: La Chanteuse D'Opéra

Natalie Dessay is a dazzling opera singer. Her charisma, captured on the stages of the world's great opera houses and in the recording studio, illuminates the opera arias and scenes in this collection. From Mozart's furious Queen of the Night or Offenbach's robotic Olympia to Strauss's flirtatious Zerbinetta and Delibes' devoted Lakmé … Handel's mercurial Cleopatra to Donizetti's desperate Lucia… Thomas's fragile Ophélie to Massenet's capricious Manon and Verdi's passionate, tragic Violetta … Natalie Dessay proves irresistible in repertoire that spans three centuries and a wealth of musical and dramatic possibilities.

Born in Lyon in 1965, Natalie Dessay grew up in Bordeaux. She first dreamed of becoming a dancer, but later studied acting and singing at the Bordeaux Conservatoire. She progressed with extraordinary rapidity, completing five years' worth of study in just one year and graduating with First Prize at the age of twenty. In 1989, after a brief period in the chorus of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, she entered France's first Concours des Voix nouvelles and won second prize. This led Dessay to further studies at the Paris Opéra and also brought her to the attention of the agent Thérèse Cédelle - still her agent today - and to her first major engagements as a soloist.