Patricia Petibon is a French soprano, born on February 27 1970 in Montargis, and married to the French composer Eric Tanguy. Her repertoire includes French Baroque and classical music, notably Mozart, and modern composers, such as Poulenc, Bernstein, Copland, Bacri.
She studied singing with Rachel Yakar at the Conservatoire de Paris, where she obtained a first prize in 1995.
She has worked with conductors like William Christie – and notably with his baroque ensemble, Les Arts Florissants – as well as with John Eliot Gardiner, Marc Minkowski, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Daniel Harding, the stage director Bob Wilson and the Austrian ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien.
In 1996 she made her debut at the Opéra National de Paris with Hippolytus and Aricia by Rameau. Then, she performed different roles, such as Blondchen in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Norina in Don Pasquale, Ophelia in Hamlet, Olympia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Serpette in La Finta Giardiniera, Lakmé, and Susanna in the Nozze di Figaro: a series of women roles in love, naive or extravagant. But Patricia Petibon also performs tragic characters, as the title role in Lulu by Alban Berg, the first twelve-tone opera in the history of music, interpreted by Patricia in Barcelona in 2010, directed for stage by Olivier Py. More recently, she made her debut as Donna Anna from Don Giovanni at the Paris Opera Garnier.
Among her Baroque lyric roles, she obtained a huge success for her Giunia from Lucio Silla by Mozart at the Theater an der Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Patricia Petibon is also well-known for giving recitals. During the Mozart Year 2006 at the Salzburg Festival, she notably sang with Michael Schade and actor Tobias Moretti. Another famous partner of Patricia Petibon for recitals is the pianist Susan Manoff.
Her discography includes Orlando Paladino, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, La Passione Di Gesù under the baton of Fabio Biondi, Werther and The Abduction from the Seraglio. In 2008 Patricia Petibon signed an exclusive recording agreement with Deutsche Grammophon. Her debut album, Amoureuses – arias by Mozart, Haydn and Gluck with Concerto Köln and Daniel Harding –, was released in autumn 2008 and won 2009’s BBC Music Magazine Award for “Best Opera Album”. 2010 sees the release of her following recording, Rosso, an album of Italian Baroque arias accompanied by the Venice Baroque Orchestra and conducted by Andrea Marcon. The following year, she records Melancolia, a programme of Spanish with the Orquesta Nacional de España and its music director Josep Pons
