Daniela DESSÌ, soprano

With an impressive repertoire which includes seventy operatic works, Daniela Dessì is confirmed as one of the most important sopranos on the current opera scene. With a solid international career her performances and recordings are a reference for the whole Verdi repertoire as well as the Verist and Puccini repertoire. Born in Genoa, like her partner, the tenor Fabio Armiliato, she trained at the Arrigo Boito Academy in Parma (singing and piano), qualifying later on at the Chigiana Academy in Siena.

In 1980 she won her first award at the International Competition of RAI and made her début with La serva padrona (Pergolesi). Thus she began her spectacular career performing in the most important theatres and festivals worldwide, showing a deep aesthetic capability ranging from Monteverdi to Prokofiev, with a particular specialisation in Mozart. Currently she is considered to be the best interpreter of the Verist repertoire.

Her presence is constantly requested on the most prestigious stages such as the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, the Regio in Turin, the Carlo Felice in Genoa, the San Carlo, Naples, the Comunale in Bologne, La Fenice, Venice, the Verona Arena, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence, the Massimo in Palermo, the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, the Lyric Opera House, Chicago, San Francisco Opera House, Los Angeles Opera House, the Staatsoper in Vienna, Deutsche Opera in Berlin, Bayersiche Staatsoper in Munich, the Opernhaus, Zurich, the Teatro Real, Madrid, the Liceu in Barcelona, the Maestranza, Seville, Bilbao Ópera House, Oviedo Opera House and a many, many more which include the most important theatres in Tokyo, Nagasaki, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya and Sapporo – she being the first soprano to play the role of Butterfly in these numerous Japanese cities and in theatres such as the Opera Theatre in Seoul (Korea) and in the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Saltzburg Festival, Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Festival of the Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, etc.

In her thirty year career, thanks to a flawless talent and to an extraordinary dramatic instinct, Daniela Dessì has collaborated with the most influential conductors of her generation, such as Riccardo Muti (Don Carlos, Falstaff, Verdi´s Requiem, Così fan tutte and Nozze di Figaro), Claudio Abbado (Simon Boccanegra, Don Carlos), James Levine (Pagliacci, Bohème and Andrea Chénier), Giuseppe Sinopoli (Aida, Verdi´s Requiem), Daniele Gatti (Tosca, Aida, Falstaff and Don Carlos), Zubin Mehta (Falstaff, Verdi´s Requiem, Tosca and Don Giovanni); Gianluigi Gelmetti (Iris, Guglielmo Tell, Il Trittico, (she is the first performer in Italy to sing all the three feminine characters); Bruno Campanella (Cappello di Paglia di Firenze, L’elisir d’Amore, Ernani), Bruno Bartoletti (Mefistofele, La Cena delle beffe, Luisa Miller, Pagliacci, Tosca, Simon Boccanegra, Butterfly, Aida); Nicolas Harnoncourt (Aida); Gustav Kuhn (Falstaff, La Traviata, La Bohème); Riccardo Chailly (Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Rossini´s Petite Messe Solemnelle), Lorin Maazel (Tosca, Turandot), Carlos Kleiber (La Bohème), etc., in productions with directors of the standing of Franco Zeffirelli, Luca Ronconi, PierLuigi Pizzi, Roberto de Simone, Giorgio Strelher etc.

Her touching Madama Butterfly in the Verona Arena and her unforgettable tour performing Tosca in Japan with the Rome Opera (garnering 45 minutes of applause), are only few of her successes in the most recent seasons, to which we can include her interpretation as Manon Lescaut (directed by Liliana Cavani and conducted by Renato Palumbo) in the Liceu in Barcelona and in the Staatsoper, Vienna, Don Carlo in Zurich, Adriana Lecouvreur at La Scala in Milan, Tosca in Munich, Ernani in Turin. Her return to Barcelona as Maddalena of Andrea Chénier for the opening of the season 2007-08 has been a further success with audience and critics alike, followed by Manon Lescaut and Tosca in Vienna, Venice, Verona and Torre del Lago, her long-awaited and sensational début in Norma in Bologna, La Bohème and La fanciulla del West in Rome and an amazing début as Leonora in La forza del destino in Montecarlo.

Her season 2008-2009 began with Tosca in Florence (where the continuous applause obliged her to give an encore of “Vissi d’arte” - it has been 52 years since this happened to Renata Tebaldi). Her performances this season include Tosca at the Verdi Theatre in Trieste, Adriana Lecouvreur in Palermo, Fanciulla del West in Seville, Manon Lescaut in Warsaw, Madama Butterfly in Hannover and Aida in Verona and Cagliari, and she closes the season in Barcelona playing Liù in Turandot; all this will take place after her anxiously awaited recital in the Theater Alla Scala in Milan, on the 19th of January 2009.

During her career she has received several awards from different Musical Associations such as the Zenatello Arena in Verona, the Giordano in Baveno, the Giacomo Puccini association in Torre del Lago, the Cilea in Reggio Calabria, the Gigli d’Oro in Recanati, the Liguria in Genoa, the E. Mazzoleni in Palerm, the Mascagni d’Oro in Bagnara di Romagna, the Regina della Lirica of the Association Tiberini in San Lorenzo in Campo and the Le Muse Prize in 2007 at the Academy delle Muse in Florence.

A large discography and a very sizeable collection of opera works on video and DVD are the testimonial to her devotion to tuition, which has led her to offer master classes in important Music Academies.

Further to all this, has taken an important role in various television programmes dedicated to the popularization of the operatic art.