Lucile Richardot

Alto and mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot has been an important presence on the Baroque operatic scene in the 2010s and 2020s. She has also, since 2012, led her own ensemble, Tictatus. Richardot grew up in eastern France, where she sang for six years in the Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Lorraine d'Epinal, a children's choir. Instead of continuing with music, however, she studied journalism and worked in that field until she was 27. Returning to vocal studies, Richardot attended the Conservatoire du Vème arrondissement de Paris, the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, and finally, Paris' Conservatoire à rayonnement régional, where she worked with Margreet Hoenig, Noëlle Barker, and Jill Feldman, among others. A notable feature of Richardot's career is that she was taking on, and even originating, major roles while still a student. Shortly after resuming her studies, she performed with the ensemble Poème Harmonique under director Vincent Dumestre in Lully's opera Cadmus et Hermione. Richardot played the first Aunt in the premiere performance of the contemporary opera Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne, by Philippe Boesmans, in 2009. Another major contemporary role was one in Luigi Nono's Omaggio a Kurtag, which Richardot performed in 2014 with the famed Ensemble InterContemporain. In the Baroque realm, Richardot performed as Lisa in Vivaldi's little-heard opera Arsilda with the Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704 in 2017. She has appeared with Solistes XXI, Ensemble Pygmalion, and Les Arts Florissants as part of a complete performance cycle of Monteverdi's madrigals under director Paul Agnew. Richardot also performed in a series of Bach cantata concerts in Paris and appeared on several recordings of this repertory. In 2018, she made her first appearance on recordings as a featured soloist on Perpetual Night, an album of 17th century English songs, with Ensemble Correspondances under Sébastien Daucé. In 2020, Richardot formed a new voice-and-piano duo with pianist Anne de Fornel, whom she met at a French radio interview. That year, she moved to the Alpha label, performing on a recording of a small-ensemble adaptation of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. She then moved to Harmonia Mundi, appearing on recordings of music by Pergolesi, Berio, and, in 2022, a hypothetical Great Venetian Mass by Vivaldi.
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