Natalie Dessay is giving it all up
OperaThe French soprano has told France Musique that she will end her richly varied career in 2025, when she turns 60.
A rising talent at the Vienna Opera she was propelled by Pavarotti’s pugnacious manager Herbert Breslin to the Met where she enjoyed four or five seasons of a very particulaar stardom – getting the full diva treatment while remaining unfathomably herself.
She took spontaneous breaks from opera to act in French plays and to sing popular chansons.
Never quite a world star, Natalie Dessay was a unique art object and tremendous fun. We shall miss her.
A fantastically musical singer and real actress. Coloratura sopranos don’t usually achieve the fame of dramatic sopranos. One exception: Lily Pons. But that was a long time ago.
What about her doing the ironing for the régiment?
I love that scene. She’s such a fantastic actress and so much fun to watch. I also often go back and watch this YouTube video (taken at Chicago Lyric, I think) of her singing ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’ from Alcina, which is equally fun.
Her performance received the loudest ovation I have ever heard at Covent Garden. Technically perfect, wonderfully funny.
“Never quite a world star”? They designed productions sur mesure for her in New York, Vienna, Paris. What would a “world star” look like?
The story of Dessay is that of someone who deliberately and consciously exhausted herself and her voice in the pursuit of artistic integrity, and of compelling roles. She used to call herself a “singing actress” rather than a singer who acts, and that moniker is very apt. Whatever her vocal flaws at the end, her arguable overreaches beyond the confines of her voice, she is/was a superlative artist, leaving it all on scene for artistic performance
And she had a particular gift for comedy, something underappreciated in opera (and rarer than it should be).
A “world star” looks like Andrea Bocelli. Eh.
I’d put it this way: her worldly fame was not commensurate with her unworldly talent.
She is more talented and a better artist than 99% of singers more famous than she.
History will treat her very well, she has left a mark that uniquely hers, that is comparable to any.
Dessay had given it all up long before her 60th. She is but another example of early, premature burnout. And with her small, soubrette voice there was no place for her to go.
A 20 years career at the top is hardly a burnout with nowhere to go for the voice. Natalie was always an atypical singer who took only projects she vibed with as a singer and a human being. The muppet balcony is always easy to sit in and apit from, doing what she did was not easy.
Her Met debut was in 1994 and she sang her last performance there in 2013. She sang in 4 new productions and in 5 HD world telecasts. I think her significance to the Met was greater than your throw-away phrase “four or five seasons of a very particulaar stardom” implies.
Who can blame her in today’s post pandemic world, and then at sixty young enough to do something else and still have a life. Wish her well.
“. . . the full diva treatment while remaining unfathomably herself . . . a unique art object and tremendous fun. We shall miss her.”
An apt description, felicitously phrased and enjoyable to read. Thank you, Mr Lebrecht.
She performed as a singing actress/actor in the tradition of Chaliapin and Callas using all the elements of theater and was enchanting to watch and listen. She always had that theatrical allure or charisma on stage and enlivened many an opera, rendering an occasionally missed high note superfluous. Nice, glamorous photo shoot, Mr. Lebrecht.
Predictable division of opinion in the comments. There have always been opera stars who reached beyond the level their purely vocal/musical gifts would have earned because they had extraordinary gifts in other areas. Hildegard Behrens was a similar example, in very different repertory, just a little earlier.
Two things to remember: you have to be at least “pretty good by prevailing standards” to get a shot at this kind of stardom, and if “prevailing standards” are in a downturn, this year’s example is going to be even more compromised than last year’s example. But that is not Natalie Dessay’s fault.
As a music student in Vienna for 2 years in the 90s, I attended a lot of Staatsoper — that was an education in itself — and amongst my strongest and fondest memories are Mme Dessay’s performances of Zerbinetta, which really did bring the house down every time. Sincere thanks and congratulations to her for a wonderful career.
Gifted with an enormous talent as an actress, or is it clowness, her ideas on what parts to sing, and how, unfortunately limited her prime to 5 years or so.
She is and will always remain one of my favorite artists. Her Morgana in Lyrics Alcina stole the show. No one was a better Zerbinetta and her Lucia was most memorable.
Saw her most recently in Strasbourg when she came to rehearsals to hear Michael Spyres sing Berlioz Nuits d’Ete with John Nelson all in the original key. She was acting in a play there. She was gracious multi-talented and an astounding woman.
Natalie Dessay is a wonderful opera singer, a good actress and a very nice person.
On YouTube you can find her singing “Popoli di Tessaglia” by Mozart, at the end she reaches twice the highest G (contre-sol), higher than The Magic Flute.
Bravo Natalie, et merci!
Natalie Dessay will be acting in a play, L’Impresario de Smyrne, set in Venice, at the Royal Park Theatre in Brussels this coming season. The play concerns opera and is based on a Goldoni comedy. I have had a season ticket for some years and am looking forward to it. I love Goldoni.
A unique star who very smartly quit while she is ahead. Think Janet Baker. And think Domingo.
‘Never quite a world star’? You must be joking.
“Never quite a world star… ”
I see the senility is still in full swing.