Danielle de Niese

Danielle de Niese is more than just the most magnetic presence in modern classical music, or the woman described by the New York Times magazine as “Opera’s Coolest Soprano.” She’s also a performer who’s shredding the rulebook with her unique combination of operatic credibility, musical theatre style and TV presenter profile. Not only has she thrilled audiences worldwide from the Metropolitan Opera to Covent Garden, she won an Emmy Award as a TV host at 16, made her Broadway debut at 18 in Les Miserables, has performed at Carnegie Hall with rapper LL Cool J as well as British pop sensation Mika on ITV, and been the voice of Ridley Scott’s movie Hannibal, recording with Hans Zimmer and performing on screen.

Born in Australia to parents of Sri Lankan and Dutch heritage and raised in Los Angeles, Danielle de Niese has been captivating audiences since childhood. Her “sweet, gleaming soprano,” “phenomenal musicality” and “sharply comic, yet utterly moving acting”, combined with an entrancing physical presence, have launched her into a spectacular career. She recorded four solo albums with Decca/Universal Records which garnered her accolades such as New Artist of the Year at Germany’s ECHO Awards, France’s Orphée D'Or and a Classical Brit Award nomination as Female Artist of the Year. She has been hailed as “not just a superb performer, but a phenomenal one” by Opera News and Marie Claire magazine named de Niese in their influential list of “Women on Top”. 

De Niese has gained wide recognition as a highly respected and popular classical artist, who regularly appears on the world’s most prestigious opera and concert stages and is a prolific recording artist, TV personality and ambassador for two charities which are close to her heart: HRH Prince Charles’s Foundation for Children in the Arts and the International Rescue Committee.

She has performed on all the major operatic stages in the world. Her classical career has included countless starring roles at the Metropolitan Opera, New York in The Marriage of Figaro (in which she made her Met debut at 19),The Enchanted Island and Cosi Fan Tutte among others. Her British opera debut in 2005 at Glyndebourne Festival Opera as an all-singing all-dancing Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare catapulted her to international stardom and has led to multiple leading roles there. She has also performed as soloist with many major orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.

Danielle returned to her musical theatre roots for the BBC global broadcast of “Last Night of the Proms” in a double-header classical and musical theatre performance on the same day at the Proms in the Park, Hyde Park and at Royal Albert Hall performing a Julie Andrews medley to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the film The Sound of Music. In January this year, she reopened the Sydney Opera House on New Year’s Eve breaking all box office records as the Merry Widow in the musical theatre production of Lehar’s The Merry Widow with Opera Australia and sang the role of Eileen in Bernstein’s musical Wonderful Town for her London Symphony Orchestra debut, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and just released on CD. She also partnered with Bryn Terfel this summer to sing “Amazing Grace” on his new album Dreams and Songs.

Danielle regularly presents the BBC Proms, and her documentaries; Diva Diaries, The Birth of an Opera and the most recent and highly praised Unsung Heroines, also for the BBC, attest to her extraordinary ability to communicate on every level. Sky Arts will feature Danielle as the subject of her own Southbank Show presented by Melvyn Bragg on November 21, 2018.