By day, she’s just like you and me. She jokes, she laughs, she even throws out the occasional curse. By night, she serenades thousands in opera houses around the world. She’s the diva of the opera world, the rising soprano that has captivated millions since the age of 15. She’s the bubbly, talented, highly charismatic Danielle de Niese.
Ever passionate and self-driven, de Niese was gracing the stage long before her prestigious operatic career. As a child, she participated in several vocal and dance programs, and by the young age of nine she had already become the youngest winner of her native Australia’s 80s television show Young Talent Time. When de Niese was only eleven, her family migrated to Los Angeles, where she continued to appear on television as a guest host for the show L.A. Kids, for which she received an Emmy. However, despite her early success on television and her great potential in the pop industry, the young artist followed the tug of classical music and it was finally at fifteen that she debuted with the Los Angeles Opera. It was not long before she was packing her bags for the glamorous New York, where she would further develop and pursue her newfound calling in the Mannes music school. At eighteen, the Metropolitan Opera took what the Times magazine calls “opera’s coolest soprano” under its wing, and the rest is history.
After having been featured in opera houses from Chicago to Paris to London to Amsterdam, de Niese has now recently returned to her roots at the Met to play her latest role of Despina in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. Although she plays a supporting role in this opera buffa, de Niese steals the show from the moment she first appears on the stage seemingly dragging a giant set behind her. Juxtaposed with the prim, more proper principal characters, Despina is easily the most likeable personality despite her sneaky, mischievous ways. De Niese brings the character to life with a spunky attitude that emanates as she struts about with exaggerated fussy gestures while belting explosive arias, going so far as to dissolve what in theatre is called the “fourth wall” by casting the occasional wink over at the audience, letting it in on her secrets.
Quite pleasantly, de Niese is just as inviting to her audience in real life as she is on stage. A few weeks after attending the opening night of Cosi Fan Tutte, I was able to meet her up close in one of the several audience member Q&A sessions she had eagerly agreed to participate in. Never having attended one of these events, I was unsure of what to expect from this classical world celebrity. I thought her status would somehow create a certain invisible barrier between herself and the rest of us, but all insecurities dissipated as soon as her name was called out and she stepped into the room. The first thing she did as she took her seat in front of us was exclaim “Wow! I can’t believe how much my voice has changed!”, referring to the short clip of her performance in “Orfeo ed Euridice” that we had just been shown. Her fierce, confident demeanor commanded everyone’s attention, but there was no sense of vanity, no sense of pretension as she noted the improvement she has undergone in the past few years. She was proud of her repertoire, but was not ostentatious about it. She comforted her audience by being comfortable with herself, demonstrating with her excited outbursts and lively storytelling that there was nothing to be intimidated about, because she was just as human as anyone else. It was refreshing to know that she does not take her well-deserved fame for granted, having always gone out of her way to ensure that she gives her best performance by learning all her lines so as to not depend on prompters, flying out and learning Italian first-hand in Italy, and still doing the “boring” vocal exercises that are so important for the maintaining and conditioning of her voice. Overall, she was a pleasure to listen to, articulate and entertaining in her storytelling, clearly in love with what she does for a living.
To my delight, de Niese let us into her dressing room after the Q&A, showing us all her favorite outfits and wigs. I felt like a little girl again as I browsed through all the costumes, all of which weighed at least five pounds. I was taken aback by de Niese’s patience and composure as over twenty people filed into her small dressing room, commenting to a peer that if there were this many people packed into my own room, I would feel completely violated. Even more surprising was that the singer did no appear to be remotely fazed at the notion of having less than two hours to prepare for that night’s performance of Cosi, a true professional at her art.
Confident and collected, passionate and emotional, Danielle de Niese was a fantastic host as she let us into her movie-like world of fame and glory. After all, they don’t call her “opera’s coolest soprano” for nothing!
