DANIELA DESSÌ

DANIELA DESSÌ, soprano

With a wide repertoire spanning more than seventy operas, Daniela Dessì is confirmed as one of the greatest sopranos on the current opera scene. Thanks to a remarkable international career, her performances and recordings are a reference for the whole repertoire of Verdi, Puccini and the whole Verismo repertoire. Born in Genoa, she graduated in singing and piano from the Conservatory “Arrigo Boito” in Parma, later specialising in chamber singing at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. In 1980 she won first prize at the Concorso Internazionale RAI “Auditorium”.

Since her debut with La serva padrona by Pergolesi, she started a great career: requested in the major theatres and festivals of the world, her repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to Prokofiev, without forgetting her great interpretations of Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte by Mozart, under the conduction of Riccardo Muti.

Daniela Dessì has a flawless technique and an extraordinary dramatic instinct, that brought her on the most important stages, collaborating with such authoritative conductors as Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, James Levine, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniele Gatti, Zubin Mehta, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Bruno Campanella, Bruno Bartoletti, Nicolas Harnoncourt, Gustav Kuhn, Riccardo Chailly, Lorin Maazel, Carlos Kleiber; she has worked also with the most famous directors, including Franco Zeffirelli, Luca Ronconi, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Roberto De Simone, Giorgio Strehler. Among her recent greatest successes, it is worth mentioning the debut of Norma in Bologna (2008, for which she received the prestigious prize “Abbiati”), Andrea Chénier in Barcelona, Tosca in Florence (where she granted an encore of “Vissi d''''''''arte”, 52 years after the last encore by Renata Tebaldi), La fanciulla del West in Torre del Lago for the centenary of the work (2010), Aida in Tokyo, Andrea Chénier in Madrid, Tosca in New York and Genoa, I vespri siciliani in Parma, Madama Butterfly in San Francisco and Francesca da Rimini in Salerno. In 2011 she made her importart debut in La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, where this opera had not been performed for 41 years; she was also Desdemona in Otello and Leonora in Il trovatore in Liège with the tenor Fabio Armiliato, her partner in life and art (both operas were recorded for the label SoloVoce); she sang in Madama Butterfly in Vienna, and then in the duo recitals with Fabio Armiliato at the Tokyo Opera House City Hall / Takemitsu Memorial. The year 2011 ended with another important debut that will be soon a record product: the Vier letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss, for the Symphonic Season of Rome.

In 2012 she performed in Madama Butterfly at Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, in La Gioconda at the National Theatre in Mannheim, in Adriana Lecouvrer at the Gran Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona, with Fabio Armiliato. At the 55th edition of the Festival dei 2 Mondi in Spoleto she performed as protagonist of a recital entitled Novecento Italiano Rarities. She was also Tosca at the Herodion Theatre in Athens – a role for which she is internationally recognised as a reference singer – followed by a series of concerts in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in duo recitals with Fabio Armiliato.

After singing in two different productions of Madama Butterfly at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo and in Gozo, Malta, at the end of 2012 she gained a great success performing two outstanding debuts in the role of Pauline in Poliuto by Donizetti at the Théâtre National in Marseille, and in the title role in Turandot by Puccini at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. She started 2013 with Tosca at Staatsoper in Berlin, and in March she performed her recital Novecento Italiano Rarities at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, followed by La forza del destino in Liège with Fabio Armiliato. Upcoming engagements include Aida at Arena in Verona and another important debut in the role of Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana at Taormina Festival.

Daniela Dessì is credited with a very large discography. Her passion for singing has allowed her to dedicate part of her time to teaching. She has also starred in several television programs devoted to the popularization of opera. She has received many awards including the prestigious prize “Abbiati” in 2008, the prize “Giacomo Puccini”, Torre del Lago (2011), prize “Zenatello” Arena di Verona in 2000. In 2011 she received the prestigious prize “Belcanto Rodolfo Celletti” in Martina Franca as “absolute soprano”.