Natalie Dessay is a dazzling opera singer. She is also an actress of intensity and magnetism, whether in tragedy or comedy. Her charisma, captured on the stages of the world’s great opera houses and in the recording studio, illuminates the complete operas and recitals of arias and scenes in this collection. From Mozart’s furious Queen of the Night to Debussy’s enigmatic Mélisande … Offenbach’s robotic Olympia to Strauss’s flirtatious Zerbinetta and Delibes’ devoted Lakmé … Handel’s mercurial Cleopatra to Donizetti’s boisterous Marie and 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 four centuries and a wealth of musical and dramatic possibilities.

Born in Lyon in 1965, Natalie Dessay grew up in Bordeaux. Her first ambitions were to become a dancer, but she went on to study acting and singing at the Bordeaux Conservatoire. She completed her studies in just one year, graduating with First Prize at the age of 20. In 1989, after a brief period in the chorus of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, she won second prize in France’s first Concours des Voix Nouvelles. This led to further studies at the Paris Opéra and to her first major engagements as a soloist.

In 1992 she sang Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann at Paris’s Opéra Bastille in a staging by Roman Polanski. In 1993 she was Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Vienna State Opera and Olympia for the reopening of the Opéra de Lyon. By 2001 she had performed Olympia in eight different stagings of Hoffmann, including her debut at La Scala, Milan. The 1990s also brought: the Queen of the Night at Aix-en-Provence; Ophélie (Thomas: Hamlet) in Geneva (also at London’s Royal Opera House and at Barcelona’s Liceo, filmed for DVD); Aminta (Strauss: Die schweigsame Frau) in Vienna; Fiakermilli (Strauss: Arabella) for her debut at the New York Metropolitan, which was soon followed by Olympia and Zerbinetta; Lakmé (Delibes) at Paris’s Opéra Comique (she also recorded the role with Michel Plasson); Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers in Lyon (also recorded) and, in Paris, Morgana in Handel’s Alcina (recorded for Erato) and the title role in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol (recorded for audio, used as a film soundtrack). Conductors over this period included Pierre Boulez, James Levine, James Conlon, William Christie and Marc Minkowski.

Her career entered a new phase in 2001 with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, which she subsequently sang in 2004 in Chicago, in 2006 at the Bastille, Paris and for the opening of the New York Metropolitan’s 2007-8 season. She also recorded the French version of the opera. She triumphed in more Donizetti, La Fille du régiment, in 2007 in a witty staging by Laurent Pelly (one of Dessay’s favourite directors) in London, Vienna and New York. The British performances led to a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for Dessay, and to a DVD release which became an international bestseller.

In 2008, after revivals of Lucia and of La Fille du regiment at the Metropolitan, she starred as Massenet’s Manon (a role she first sang in Geneva in 2004) at Chicago Lyric Opera. This was in David McVicar’s production, also staged in Barcelona, where it was recorded for DVD with Rolando Villazón as Des Grieux.

January 2009 brought Natalie Dessay’s first assumption of Debussy’s Mélisande at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, again directed by Laurent Pelly (recorded for DVD). More firsts followed in 2009 with Violetta in Santa Fe and Musetta (Puccini: La bohème) at the Opéra de Paris. In 2010, Paris mounted a new production of La sonnambula for Dessay, an opera she had sung in 2004 in Santa Fe and which she recorded live at concert performances in Lyon in 2006. In 2009-10 Dessay again sang Amina, this time in new productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Paris and Vienna. 2011 brought her first Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, at the Opéra de Paris, staged by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, and a new production of La Traviata at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Dessay chose to give her final operatic performances in 2013, as Manon in Toulouse, but has continued to perform both classical and popular song. Notably, she collaborated with the late Michel Legrand in concerts and in a semi-staging of Les parapluies de Cherbourg in Paris in 2014 (recorded for DVD by Erato).

Natalie Dessay’s relationship with Warner Classics dates back to 1994 and she has recorded the song and oratorio repertoire in addition to opera. Her CD/DVD compilations Le Miracle d’une voix, released in 2006, have proved an enormous success, selling over 250,000 copies.


Natalie Dessay: The Opera Singer comprises 33 CDs and 19 DVDs, demonstrating Dessay’s achievement as a singing actress both in purely vocal terms and as a bête de scene (‘stage animal’). This box represents the complete collection of opera recordings she did in audio and video.

CDs:

12 complete operas, ranging from the Baroque era to the 20th century:
- Bellini: La sonnambula
- Delibes: Lakmé
- Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor and Lucie de  Lammermoor (French version of the opera, prepared by the composer for Paris)
- Handel: Alcina
- Monteverdi: Orfeo
- Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, Mitridate, re di Ponto
- Offenbach: Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Orphée aux enfers
- Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos
- Stravinsky: Le Rossignol

Seven recital discs covering Handel, Mozart, Strauss and a variety of French and Italian repertoire.

DVDs:

12 complete operas, again ranging from the Baroque era to the 20th century, recorded at some of the world’s major opera houses and festivals:
- Bellini: La sonnambula
- Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
- Donizetti: La Fille du régiment
- Handel: Giulio Cesare
- Massenet: Manon
- Offenbach: Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Orphée aux enfers
- Strauss: Arabella, Ariadne auf Naxos
- Stravinsky: Le Rossignol
- Thomas: Hamlet
- Verdi: La traviata

‘Greatest Moments on Stage’: a DVD of scenes, all featuring Dessay at her most virtuosic, recorded live at some of the world’s major opera houses and festivals, from works by Bernstein, Donizetti, Mozart, Offenbach, Ravel, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss and Thomas. The video also includes commentary from Dessay herself.

DVD Bonus: Lucia di Lammermoor’s Mad Scene filmed live at the Metropolitan Opera in 2007