Sabine Devieilhe

Soprano Sabine Devieilhe first drew widespread notice during the 2010s, when her magnetic stage presence and flexible instrument prompted comparisons with the celebrated Natalie Dessay. Her repertoire has encompassed both Baroque and contemporary scores, and she has collaborated extensively with period-instrument ensembles as well as conventional symphony orchestras and opera companies.

Born on December 12, 1985, in the Norman town of Ifs, Devieilhe grew up in a household headed by two special-education teachers who had no musical background. Early lessons at a neighborhood music school led to enrollment at the Caen Conservatory when she was twelve. Although she began by studying cello, faculty members encouraged her to add vocal training. At the University of Rennes she pursued degrees in musicology and ethnomusicology while singing in the chorus for several local opera productions. She entered the Paris Conservatory as a voice student in 2008, captured the institution’s highest award, and received her diploma in 2011.

Her recording career began modestly in 2010 as a member of the ensemble Les Cris de Paris on the album Encores; the following year she issued her first solo recital on the Glossa label, devoted to Gustave Charpentier: Music for the Prix de Rome. Erato signed her in 2013, after which her operatic engagements and innovative recital projects both flourished. She portrayed the title character in Delibes’ Lakmé at the Montpellier Opera and repeated the part at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 2014. Another breakthrough came in 2013 when she sang the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Opéra National de Lyon, later reprising the role at the Opéra National de Paris. She has also assumed the role of Amina in Bellini’s La sonnambula on multiple occasions.

Recognition at the Victoires de la musique classique followed quickly: she received the Lyric Artist Revelation prize in 2013 and was named Lyric Artist of the Year two years later. In 2015 she released Mozart: The Weber Sisters, an exploration of music Mozart composed for Aloysia and Constanze Weber. She joined Lea Desandre in 2018 for a collection of Italian cantatas by Handel, made her Carnegie Hall debut the next year with a program of French songs, and recorded an album of that repertoire with pianist Alexandre Tharaud in 2020. Three further Erato releases appeared in 2021: Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto, K. 87, Rameau’s Achante et Céphise, and a recital of Bach and Handel works with the early-music ensemble Pygmalion. In 2022 she performed the soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G major with Les Siècles; she returned to the studio in 2024 for a recital of Mozart and Richard Strauss songs accompanied by pianist Mathieu Pordoy. By that date her discography contained roughly fifty entries. The asteroid 33346 Sabinedevieilhe bears her name.