The Italian mezzo-soprano, born in Perugia, graduated in Political Sciences in Florence and in singing at the Florence Conservatory. She made her debut in London in 1996 as Rosina in the Barber of Seville.
That same year she won First Prize at the "Valentino Bucchi" Competition in Rome, and in 1997 she won the "A. Belli" Competition in Spoleto, where she interpreted Sesto in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.
She then began an international career that led her to perform in major Italian and European theaters: Florence, Naples, Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Rome, Torino, Palermo, Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Leipzig, Opéra de Paris, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Salzburg Festival and the Glyndebourne Festival.
She began by singing major Mozart’s and Rossini’s operas: Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, La finta Semplice, Lucio Silla, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola, Le Comte Ory, Zelmira. At the same time, she successfully interpreted baroque roles: Haendel, Vivaldi and Monteverdi’s operas. In subsequent years she approached late romantic and early ‘900 roles: Oberon, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, L’heure espagnole, Nabucco, Falstaff.
Since 2017 she has broadened her repertoire as Carmen at Venice’s La Fenice, conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, and as Charlotte in Werther at Palermo’s Teatro Massimo.
She also took part in various productions such as Carmen at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, at the Tokyo Opera City Hall and Suntory Hall.
Her repertoire encompasses baroque (Monteverdi, Handel, Pergolesi, Vivaldi), Mozartian roles, Italian bel canto (Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, the first Verdi), romantic roles (Gounod, Massenet, Berlioz, Weber) and 20th century music (Ravel, Poulenc, Berg, De Falla).
Apart from operas, she has also performed in various concert halls including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican Center in London, the NHK Concert Hall in Tokyo, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
She has collaborated with significant conductors such as: Claudio Abbado, Roberto Abbado, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Riccardo Chailly, James Conlon, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Andrew Davis, Ottavio Dantone, Renè Jacobs, Jesus Lopez Cobos, Alessandro De Marchi, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Zubin Mehta, Marc Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Christophe Rousset, Jeffrey Tate.
Among her CD and DVD recordings, are Aroldo by Verdi (ed. Philips), Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans, Orlando finto pazzo and Armida (ed. Opus 111), Giustino (ed. Virgin Classics), Weber’s Oberon (Decca), Artaxerxes by Terradellas (ed. Harmonia Mundi), Fedora and La Finta Semplice on DVD (Deutsche Grammophon), Le Nozze di Figaro on DVD (TDK), a solo album of Arias and Cantatasby Crescentini (ed. Tactus), a solo album of Melodies by P. Viardot (ed. Brilliant), a solo album Homenaje a García Lorca - Preludios y canciones (ed. Musica Novantiqua), and Zelmira by Rossini (Naxos).
