Annick Massis is internationally recognised as one of the greatest French sopranos and one of the most versatile singers of our time. She appears at Europe’s leading opera houses, including the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Zurich Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, the Deutsche Oper and the Philharmonie in Berlin, La Monnaie in Brussels and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In the United States she has sung in Washington, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, at Avery Fisher Hall and at Pittsburgh Opera. In France she appears at the major opera houses, including the Capitole de Toulouse, the opera houses of Marseille, Nice and Montpellier, the Opéra Bastille, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the Palais Garnier and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. She has built the most prestigious Italian career of any French soprano, appearing at La Scala in Milan, the Teatro Malibran and La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro Comunale in Florence and the Teatro Regio in Turin, as well as in Trieste, Naples, Rome and Cagliari.

She is a regular guest at the greatest festivals, including Glyndebourne, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Salzburg Festival, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and, most recently, the Arena di Verona Festival.

Throughout her career she has worked with figures such as Alberto Zedda, Richard Bonynge, William Christie, Trevor Pinnock, Ivor Bolton, Marc Minkowski, Christoph Eschenbach, Georges Prêtre, Ottavio Dantone, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Oren, Eve Queler, Marcello Viotti, James Levine, Simon Rattle and Bruno Campanella, as well as Pier Luigi Pizzi, Laurent Pelly, David McVicar, Franco Zeffirelli and Luca Ronconi...

Her repertoire spans the whole of French music, from Rameau’s Baroque to Poulenc and Berlioz, and many of her French Romantic interpretations are regarded as models of their kind. A sought-after interpreter of Mozart’s great heroines, she has firmly established her reputation as a bel canto stylist by singing – and reviving – the greatest coloratura roles of Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini and Meyerbeer.

Her unique repertoire includes more than 70 roles, among which the following stand out: Handel’s Semele and Almirena (Rinaldo); Mozart’s Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Giunia (Lucio Silla) and Ilia (Idomeneo); Rameau’s La Folie (Platée) and Les Indes galantes; Thomas’s Philine (Mignon) and Ophélie (Hamlet); Meyerbeer’s Marguerite de Valois (Les Huguenots) and Margherita d’Anjou; Bizet’s Leïla (Les Pêcheurs de perles); Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette; Halévy’s Eudoxie (La Juive); Berlioz’s Teresa (Benvenuto Cellini); all four heroines of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann; the title role in Massenet’s Manon; in Bellini, Alaide (La straniera), La sonnambula, I puritani and I Capuleti e i Montecchi; in Rossini, Mathilde (Guillaume Tell), Anaï (Moïse et Pharaon), Amenaide (Tancredi), Matilde di Shabran, Countess Adèle (Le Comte Ory), the Contessa di Folleville (Il viaggio a Reims) and both the French and Italian versions of Il barbiere di Siviglia; Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata) and Gilda (Rigoletto); Ravel’s Fire, Princess and Nightingale (L’Enfant et les sortilèges); Poulenc’s Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Elle (La Voix humaine); Messager’s Chrysanthème (Madame Chrysanthème); and finally, in Donizetti, La Fille du régiment, Maria di Rohan and Lucia di Lammermoor, which she has sung in more than ten productions.

Alongside her intense operatic activity, Annick Massis performs mélodie and Lied, favouring Fauré, Poulenc, Viardot, Ravel, Debussy, Berlioz, Strauss, Verdi, Bellini, Puccini, Cimara and others…

She completes her repertoire with some twenty sacred works and oratorios, from Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Mozart’s great works (Requiem, Great Mass in C minor, Exsultate, jubilate) to later works by Debussy (La Chute de la maison Usher, Le Martyre de saint Sébastien), Poulenc (Gloria, Stabat Mater) and Schumann (Scenes from Goethe’s Faust).

Annick Massis has received major international honours, including, in Italy, “La Siola d’Oro”, awarded by the critics for her contribution to the Italian and French bel canto repertoire, and, in France, the insignia of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, presented by the Minister of Culture – one of the highest distinctions in the world of arts and culture.