This is me

It's difficult to explain to people who didn't grow up in France just how special Wednesdays are for French kids. Wednesdays used to be completely school-free days, reserved solely for culture, sports, and other activities outside the strict curriculum. Since 2013, this has changed a bit, but for us, Wednesday was the day of freedom, the day we could go to exhibitions for free. In France, Wednesday tastes of too many sweets and sounds like the laughter of gangs of kids in the streets. I think my love for freedom, sweets, and loud laughter was destiny, because I was born on a Wednesday. Wednesday July 18th 1990 to be precise. In the second most unfriendly city in the world: Paris. But that was a bit too much laughter and not enough grumpiness for my parents, so when I was five years old, they decided to move to Vienna.

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In Vienna, I then tried to join the Wiener Sängerknaben, which at that time didn't accept girls and therefore rejected me. That was just the first of many rejections I experienced in Vienna, but it was also one of my first experiences that politically radicalized me. As a six-year-old, I simply couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to sing just because I was a girl. I didn't know the word "feminist" for at least ten more years, but I could feel something building up inside of me

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Since the Wiener Sängerknaben didn't want me, I tried the Mozart Sängerknaben. They didn't want girls either, but recommended another choirmaster who had no objection to girls in his boys' choir: Gerald Trabesinger, who directed the Schubert Sängerknaben ("Schubsis"). I passed the audition (my first audition piece was the only song I knew in German "Alle meine Entchen") and thus my time as a "Sängerknäbin" started. With the "Schubsis", I learned not only to sing but also to play thumb wrestling, table tennis, and to swear in Viennese dialect. To this day, I am still unbeatable at thumb war.

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When I turned 12, I reluctantly left the "Sängerknäbin" life and focused on school. In French schools, you have to choose your specialty in high-school and for some reason the "scientific" specialties are often seen as giving more opportunities for the future. So, my parents made a deal: if I graduated with a scientific Baccalauréat, they would give me complete freedom to choose what I did after graduation. So I became one of the first people in my family to graduate from high school. And the very first one with a scientific Baccalauréat.

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After graduating, I applied for the entrance exam at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. I failed the exam, but was offered a place in the preparation course of the university. This would have been the perfect time for me to learn to read music and delve into music theory... but instead, I decided to study computer science alongside my vocal studies. This is probably not particularly relevant to this biography, but it might explain why I was able to study for 3 years in a preparatory course and then 6 years for a bachelor's degree at one of the best music universities in the world, and yet to this day I still can't sight-read at all and generally struggle quite a bit with anything related to music theory.

 

Then everything went really slowly: I spent (as mentioned earlier) a total of nine years studying at the vocal institute of the University of Music and Performing Arts. I was so ashamed that everything took so long for me. I tried very hard, but I just couldn't make any progress. Psychologically, physically, and vocally, this period took a heavy toll on me, and in all the other years of my life, I have never experienced worse racism than at that institution.

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Of course, it wasn't all terrible, and I also had some very wholesome experiences in Penzing. I would especially like to acknowledge the people who helped me the most during this time to stay afloat and maintain hope for the future: Bernhard Adler, Beverly Blankenship, Rannveig Braga-Postl, Franz Carda, Marie Helle, and Wolfgang Schmidtmayr, to name just a few of the many teachers who had a very positive influence on me during my time in Penzing.

 

Nevertheless, after many long, agonizingly slow years, one day everything happened very quickly: in 2016, I failed the exam for the subject "Solfeggio" for the fifth time and was kindly advised that this was the moment for me to reorient myself, as it made little sense for me to try for a career in opera if I struggled so much with music notation. I tried the entrance exam at the private university in Vienna, where I was told that at 26, I was far too old for how poor my technique was and that I would be doing myself a favor by letting go of my dream of opera singing.

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And that's the moment I could tell a great story about "perseverance" or "strong resilience," but if I'm completely honest: at that moment, I had mentally given up on the dream of becoming an opera singer. But I was so ashamed that I had studied for so long and still hadn't graduated that I simply wanted to find a way to finish my degree.

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And so, unintentionally, I made one of the best decisions of my life: I auditioned at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. There I met the person who changed everything. Ulf Bästlein. To this day, the ear I trust above all others. My singing teacher, whom I try to visit wherever I am in the world, whenever I have a free day. An elegant North German baritone whose razor-sharp, honest feedback had earned him the reputation of being one of the strictest professors at the university. He rebuilt my shattered self-confidence and vocal technique and pushed me to participate in competitions. Is anyone still reading this? This biography has somehow completely spiraled out of control and is far too long!

 

After that, everything happened very quickly. I won several prizes at competitions (most notably the Press Prize at the International Vocal Competition (IVC) in 's-Hertogenbosch in 2018 and the 1st Oratorio-Lied Prize at the Concurs Tenor Viñas in Barcelona in 2022), and my career took off.

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In 2019, I made my debut at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam as Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, conducted by Stéphane Denève and directed by Olivier Py. Shortly afterward, I was accepted into the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House, where I had the opportunity to work with many stars: Cecilia Bartoli, Barrie Kosky, Jakub Hrůša, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Brigitte Fassbaender, and many more.

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Then came the terrible years of the pandemic, which ruined so many of my colleagues. I saw how precarious this industry was and decided to seek the safety net of an ensemble. I had heard of a woman who had the ambition of revolutionizing the opera world with energy, feminism and compassion: Lotte de Beer. I was curious and so I traveled back to Vienna and knocked on the door of the Volksoper. There I was welcomed with open arms.

 

It was at the Volksoper, that I was truly crowned a world star overnight when I stepped in for a sick colleague one evening. Apparently, it has never happened before in all of opera history that a mezzo-soprano has stepped in for a tenor... and it's even rarer for a substitute to take on two roles in one night. That evening, it was "Orpheus in the Underworld." I was cast as Venus, but since Venus and Orpheus are almost never on stage at the same time, I sang, acted, and danced both roles that night. I learned all of Orpheus's dialogue, choreography, melodies, and lyrics in 23 hours. There are so many newspaper articles and interview covering this story, I'm sure I don't need to write too much more here... ^^'

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All the opera magazines in the world reported on that incredible evening. "A star was born," as they say. And in 2024, I was even nominated "Rising Star" by the International Opera Awards: a tremendous honor.

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Since then, I've enjoyed my fame, which allows me to take on and shape many projects close to my heart. I have the privilege of singing on the world's greatest stages (Covent Garden, DNO, Zurich Opera House, Staatsoper Stuttgart, etc.) with the biggest stars (Jonas Kaufmann, Andrea Pappano, Bryn Terfel, Jeanine de Bique, Sondra Radvanovsky, Raehann Bryce-Davis and many more) and sharing my love of opera with an incredibly diverse audience. I am incredibly proud of the path I have walked and deeply grateful to all the wonderful people who have accompanied me and made it possible, and I look to the future with great anticipation.

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You can find what others have said and written about me under Press Review and Links.