Lea Desandre

The French-Italian mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, who was born in Paris in 1993, gained her first musical experience in the children’s choir of the Opéra national de Paris and took ballet lessons for twelve years. Her vocal studies led her to Sara Mingardo in Venice. In 2015, she completed William Christie’s vocal academy “Le Jardin des Voix,” with which she also performed at Lucerne Festival. Lea Desandre won prizes early on at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. The “Victoires de la Musique classique” honored her as Discovery of the Year in 2017, and in 2022 she received the Opus Klassik Award as Singer of the Year. Lea Desandre is a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, where she made her debut in Monteverdi’s Poppea in 2018, appeared in Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers in 2019, and sang Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte in 2020 and 2021 and Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro in 2023. She has also performed this role at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and in Zurich, Paris, and Barcelona. Last season, she appeared as Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo in Geneva, sang the title role in Charpentier’s Médée at the Opéra national de Paris, and performed Rameau’s Samson in Aix-en-Provence. In the 2024-25 season, she can be seen in Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and as Poppea in Handel’s Agrippina at Zurich Opera. Lea Desandre has worked with such conductors as William Christie, Gustavo Dudamel, John Eliot Gardiner, Emmanuelle Haïm, Cristian Măcelaru, Joana Mallwitz, Marc Minkowski, Raphaël Pichon, and Jordi Savall. She has performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Berlin and Paris Philharmonie, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. She has released the albums Amazone (2021) and Eternal Heaven (2022) with the ensemble ­Jupiter and recorded French love songs ranging from the Baroque era to chanson with Thomas Dunford under the title Idylle (2023).

Lucerne Festival debut on 5 September 2015 as a graduate of William Christie’s “Jardin des Voix” in the Un Jardin à l’italienne.

August 2024