Jenny Daviet

Jenny Daviet is an absolutely outstanding Mélisande, both sensitive and very strong, and sings beautifully. DAGENS NYHETER

With her convincing stage presence, exceptional musicality and versatile repertoire, French soprano Jenny Daviet has made a name for herself both on the opera stage and in the concert hall. She was unanimously praised for her interpretation of Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi with Kent Nagano and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which was released on CD. A DVD production documents another highlight of her career to date: she sang the title role in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in Benjamin Lazar’s new production at the Malmö Opera under the musical direction of Maxime Pascal; another recording of this role is planned with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Kent Nagano at the beginning of the season 2026/27.

Following her success as Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte alongside Thomas Hampson and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, she will return with another Mozart role to the orchestra this season: In April she will appear as Zerlina in a half-staged production of Don Giovanni. Further opera engagements include Eurydice in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire in Nantes, Rennes, and Angers, as well as the Cheshire Cat in a French production of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland at the Opéra Nice Côte d’Azur. At the end of the season, she will sing Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Domingo Hindoyan.

Jenny Daviet has recently been performing exciting programmes of contemporary music. With the Ensemble intercontemporain, she sang Berio’s Sequenza III and Orgia by Hèctor Parra, as well as Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments. She made her debut at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin with the Boulez Ensemble, conducted by François-Xavier Roth, with Rebecca Saunders’ Skin, and she shone in Giorgio Battistelli’s opera 7 Minuti at the Opéra de Lyon. As Eva in Stockhausen’s Sonntag from the Licht cycle, she could be heard at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2023 together with ensemble Le Balcon under Maxime Pascal, having already participated in the performance of the Licht cycle’s Freitag in 2022.

Also in 2023, Jenny Daviet gave her Asian debut as Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute, which was performed at the National Taichung Theater in a production by William Kentridge. In the same year she was also scheduled to debut as Nadja in Haas’ Bluthaus at the Opéra de Lyon. Other recent operatic highlights include Héro in Berlioz’ Béatrice et Bénédict at the Cologne Opera under François-Xavier Roth, Léna in Saint-Saëns’ La princesse jaune and Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with orchestra Les Siècles. In summer 2026 she performed George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill conducted by the composer himself at Festival Messiaen, after previously singing the work at the Tokyo Spring Festival, Festival Ravel, and at Teatro del Canal in Madrid in collaboration with Teatro Real. She also appeared as Angélique in Hervé’s Les Chevaliers de la table ronde at the Opéra Grand Avignon, in the world premiere of Fernando Fiszbein’s El hombre que amaba a los peros at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and in the role of Countess de la Roche in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten at the Cologne Opera.

In 2022 Jenny Daviet sang Ligeti’s Requiem for the first time with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España under David Afkham. Recent concerts also include performances with Thomas Hengelbrock and his Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival with Brahms’ German Requiem and with Claire Gibault and the Paris Mozart Orchestra with Mozart’s Mass in C minor. She sang Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at the Opéra de Rouen, Vivier’s Bouchara at the Cologne Philharmonie, and Fauré’s Requiem at the International Rostropovich Festival in Moscow under Kazuki Yamada. A focus of her chamber music work with pianist Alphonse Cemin is the German and French repertoire of the turn of the century.

Jenny Daviet began her musical education as a pianist before joining the Conservatoire Regional Influence de Paris, where she studied under the mentorship of Laurence Equilbey, and commenced her soprano career as a member of the ensemble at the Opéra de Rouen, where she made her debut in numerous roles, including Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Serpetta (La finta giardiniera), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Second Lady (Dido and Aeneas), and Micaëla (Carmen).

 2026/27 season

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