Vannina Santoni

Soprano Vannina Santoni has an operatic repertory stretching from Mozart to world premieres and has appeared at venues in many countries. She is also in demand as a concert singer. Santoni was born in Volpajola, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, in 1987. Her first experiences as a singer came as a member of the Maîtrise de Radio France children's choir, where she encountered leading conductors, including James Levine and Georges Prêtre. Santoni also played the violin and piano, attending the Conservatoire Georges Bizet in Paris, and she also studied dance. In 2006, Santoni enrolled at the Conservatoire National de Paris (CNSM), taking classes with Jean-Paul Fouchécourt and Ruggiero Raimondi and graduating with unanimous honors in 2010. Later that year, she joined the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy and performed Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte there. In 2014, she made her recording debut in a production by Opera Fuoco of Johann Christian Bach's little-known opera Zanaida. Santoni's career in France grew rapidly, and by 2017, she was appearing as Carmen in her debut at the Opéra National de Paris for a run of 25 performances. She appeared widely in houses beyond France as well, including those in Vienna, Cologne, and Hong Kong. Santoni's repertory includes French, German, and Italian works, and she has participated in world premieres, including that of Philippe Hurel's Patricia Hearst opera Les Pigeons d'Argile at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse in 2014. Santoni is also in demand as a concert singer, having frequently appeared in the requiem masses of Brahms and Verdi, among other works. In 2022, she was heard on a BIS recording of Ravel's Cantates pour le Prix de Rome. That year, she appeared as Mélisande in a Harmonia Mundi recording of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande that earned a Best of 2022 nod from Allmusic.com, and the following year, she moved to the Alpha label for a recording of orchestral transcriptions of Debussy songs with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
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