Emmanuelle de Negri

Biography

“Emmanuelle de Negri demonstrates masterly accomplishment, overcoming, with exquisite sensitivity, all aesthetic demands … her phrasing, with perfect declamation and projection, conceals aristocratic refinement behind a façade of simplicity …” Diapason
“My heart skipped a beat at the Sangaride of Emmanuelle de Negri, a wounded angel with a voice of honey.” Le Figaro

Since the beginning of her career, Emmanuelle de Negri has distinguished herself with a broad repertoire and a rich emotional palette. After her successful debut as Yniold in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (Edinburgh and Glasgow 2005: Opéra magazine calls it "a moving splendour"), as well as in the title role in Bernardo Pasquini's oratorio Sant' Agnese (Innsbruck Festival) - "a real revelation" (Il Giornale della Musica) - Emmanuelle established a close performing relationship with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. With them she achieved outstanding interpretations with Purcell's The Fairy Queen, The Indian Queen and Dido and Aeneas, Handel's Susanna and Silete venti, Monteverdi's Selva morale e spirituale, as well as in numerous roles of French Baroque opera, such as Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne), Platée (Theater an der Wien, Opéra Comique and New York), Lully's Atys (Sangaride - "a sensation" says Opéra magazine), Campra's Les Fêtes vénitiennes (Opéra Comique, Caen and Toulouse) and Mondonville's Titon et l'Aurore in the production of Basil Twist (Opéra Comique and Versailles).

Emmanuelle appears regularly with renowned French ensembles - including Pulcinella, Les Folies Françoises, Les Enfants d'Apollo, Raphaël Pichon's Pygmalion, Vincent Dumestre's Le Poème Harmonique, Le Banquet Céleste, Les Paladins and Les Accents. She also sang in Rameau's Castor et Pollux for Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d'Astrée (Lille, Dijon, Montpellier, and Beaune) and in Les Boréades directed by Barrie Kosky (Opéra de Dijon), leading to unanimous praise from the press: "We kneel before Emmanuelle de Negri ... She enchants us with her tone, the control of the accent, and her vocal reliefs" (Diapason).

Her operatic repertoire includes Monteverdi (La Musica L’Orfeo) and Cavalli (Amastre Serse), Offenbach (Cupidon Orphée aux Enfers) and Dukas (Mélisande Ariane et Barbe-Bleue) as well as Rameau (Erinice Zoroastre) and Mozart (Papagena Die Zauberflöte and Susanna Le nozze di Figaro). In 2017, Emmanuelle's season was distinguished by her debut at the Opéra National de Paris (Nedda Gianni Schicchi), and her embodiment of Almirena in a new touring production of Handel’s Rinaldo. In addition, she appeared in the role of Bircenna in Hasses’s Cajo Fabricio with {oh!} Orkiestra conducted by Martyna Pastuszka (Gliwice and Theater an der Wien).

In the 2018/19 season she started at the Teatro San Carlo (Naples), where she sang a “perfectly delicious” (forumopera.com) Despina (Cosi fan tutte) under the baton of Riccardo Muti, followed by the Festival d'Ambronay with Amestris in Destouches Sémiramis (Ensemble Les Ombres), the title role in Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo (Le Banquet Céleste, Bruges Concertgebouw), as well as Airs sérieux et à boire with Les Art Florissants (Philharmonie de Paris, Martigny, Switzerland, and London’s Wigmore Hall), Les Indes galantes (Festival de Beaune), and Scarlatti’s Santa Teodosia (Festival de la Chaise-Dieu).

In recent years Emmanuelle has sung the role of Cephise in Schürmann's Die Getreue Alceste conducted by Christina Pluhar at the Rokokotheater Schwetzingen, a Reprise of Les Indes Galantes and Sémiramis in Versailles, Il Trionfo e del Tempo and Disinganno with the Accademia Bizantina (Cremona, Dortmund Beaune, and Halle) and again with Les Arts Florissants, Messiah on tour (Europe, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan). Together with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants she celebrated Molière (Versailles, Thiré, Luxembourg, Athens, and Paris) and was part of numerous programmes including Telemann's The Ascension and Assumption of Jesus, Charpentier's Messe de Minuit and In Nativitatem Domini Canticum. She has also toured with Handel's Israel in Egypt alongside René Jacobs and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (Paris, Freiburg and Berlin).

Most recently, Emmanuelle interpreted the title role in Rameau's Io and Héro in Héro et Léandre by de la Garde in a new production of Opéra Lafayette (New York and Washington), the role of Helena in Purcell's Fairy Queen in a production by Josette Bushell-Mingo under the musical direction of Francesco Corti (Drottningholm).

Emmanuelle will open the 2023/24 season alongside the ensemble Les Ombres, conducted by Sylvain Sartre, with the opera Télémaque et Calypso by André Cardinal Detouches (Festival d'Ambronay), which will also be revived in Versailles later in the season. With concert formats such as Orpheus Britannicus (already at Bayreuth Baroque in 2022) and Un Air pour Mademoiselle Storace, she will be heard in Pontoise and Lillebonne before performing Nérine in Charpentier's Médée with Les Arts Florissants under the baton of William Christie in a production by David McVicar in spring 2024 (Opéra de Paris, Teatro Real Madrid). She will close the season with Scarlatti's Il Giardino di Rose alongside the Ensemble Le Stagioni under Paolo Zanzu (Vézelay).

Her discography includes Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo, (with Le Banquet Céleste and Damien Guillon), Rameau's Dardanus and Castor et Pollux, a DVD of Lully's Atys, a recital disc Bien que l'Amour (for William Christie), and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice under Laurence Equilbey.

(2023/24_Please use this biography only.)