Karine Deshayes
Mezzo-soprano
After brilliant musical studies having been a pupil of Mireille Alcantara and receiving advice from Régine Crespin, Karine Deshayes first joined the troupe of the Lyon Opera, where she performed in the roles of Cherubino, Stephano, among others, and especially in her first Rossini role as Rosina.
His career quickly took off afterwards. She was invited to perform on all the major French stages: Avignon, Lyon Strasbourg, Marseille, Toulouse, Tours, Chorégies d’Orange, Bordeaux etc. She regularly performed at the Paris Opera where she won great acclaim in the Rossini roles of Angelina, Rosina, Elena, but also as Poppea in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Sesto (in Handel’s Giulio Cesare), Romeo (in Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi ) and in the Mozart roles of Cherubino and Dorabella. It was also at the Paris Opera that she took on the title-role of Carmen for the first time, as well as the role of Charlotte in Werther.
Karine Deshayes’s career has also extended into major international stages, including the Salzburg Festival (Die Zauberflöte under the baton of Riccardo Muti), the Teatro Real in Madrid, and the Liceu in Barcelona (the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon). At the invitation of the New York Metropolitan Opera, she debuted in the role of Siebel before returning there to play Isolier in the Le Comte Ory, and more recently, Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffmann directed by James Levine, where she drew particularly rave reviews from the New York music critiques. She followed this by performing in the role of Angelina in the Cenerentola at the San Francisco Opera, again to great success.
Subsequently, she has sung the role of Donna Elvira at the Opera of Paris for the first time, a role that she made own, as the public and the critics unanimously agreed. In concert, she beautifully played the role of Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at the Avignon Opera and was onstage a great Adalgisa (Norma) at the Madrid Teatro Real. In concert performances, she has performed with a huge success the part of Charlotte (Werther) at the Moscow Tchaïkovsky Concert Hall and the one of Concepción (L’Heure Espagnole) at the Auditorium de l’Opéra de Bordeaux.
Karine Deshayes’s vast repertoire has allowed her to perform regularly in concert and recital under the direction of such conductors as Emmanuel Krivine, David Stern, Kurt Masur, Emmanuelle Haïm, Louis Langrée and Myung-Whun Chung, and with such artists as Philippe Cassard, Renaud Capuçon, Nicolas Angelich, L’Ensemble Contraste, the Quatuor Ebène, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and many more.
At the Victoires de la Musique Awards in 2016, Karine Deshayes was named Lyric Artist of the Year for the second time in her career.
This season, she will also sing the part of Roméo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) at the Marseille Opera and then, will make her title-roles debut as Rossini’s Armida at the Montpellier Opera and as Alceste at the Lyon Opera. In concert, she will perform among others Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Orchestre du Capitole in Toulouse and will sing this summer at the Saint-Denis Festival as well as at the Radio France and Montpellier Festival.
January 2016