Sophie Daneman
Introduction
Sophie Daneman is particularly noted for performances of the Baroque repertoire and especially her regular collaboration with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. Among their many recordings together, three have been recent recipients of Gramophone Awards. Sophie has sung the title role in ‘Semele’ with Nicholas McGegan, Handel’s ‘L’Allegro’ with William Christie, ‘Dido and Aeneas’ for the Bavarian State Opera, her first Susanna for Grange Park Opera and Handel's Cleopatra in Goettingen. She performed the role of Telaire (‘Castor et Pollux’) with Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, returned to the Göttingen Handel Festival as Dalila (Handel's ‘Samson’), sang ‘Skellig’ (by Tod Machover) at The Sage, Gateshead, Haydn's ‘The Creation’ with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra and McGegan, Haydn’s ‘Stabat Mater’ with Fabio Biondi and Phaedra (Rameau’s ‘Hippolyte et Aricie’) for the Nationale Reisopera. Engagements include a recital tour with Christianne Stotijn in Spain and the Netherlands, recitals with Ian Bostridge in London and Hohenems, performances of Shoenberg’s Quartet Op. 10 with the Tokyo String Quartet in Valencia and Madrid, and a tour of Lully’s ‘Atys’ with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie.
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Biography
Please contact Jonathan Turnbull for a recent biography.
Press Reviews
Old and New Elizabethans/Wigmore Hall, December 2012
'Daneman relished the interplay of rhyme and rhythm, caressing her Cradle Song... [and the] Four songs by Ivor Gurney were the musical high point of the evening, with Daneman’s Orpheus with his lute and Sleep, sung in her gentle, tremulous vibrato, by far the most eloquent performances of the entire concert.'
Hilary Finch/The Times, December 23, 2012
CD: Venus and Adonis/Wigmore Hall Live, 2011
'Sophie Daneman and Roderick Williams make a sensuous pair of lovers'
The Guardian, March 10, 2011
“Sophie Daneman delivers the recitative expressively, and rises magnificently to the challenge of Venus's despair.
Classic FM Magazine, May 2011
'Sophie Daneman is a languid Venus and Roderick Williams is an ardent Adonis.'
Gramophone Magazine, May 2011
'...Sophie Daneman is outstanding as Venus, both in the careless comic moments and in the magnificent final lament...the Theatre of the Ayre turns in a highly impressive performance, by turns subtle and powerful, rhythmically slick and very well balanced.' International Record Review, April 2011
Le Jardin des Voix/Brooklyn Academy of Music, September, 2011
'The excerpts from 10 works — 8 by Lully, one each by Michel Lambert (whose daughter Madeline married Lully) and Marc-Antoine Charpentier — were performed without pause and flowed gracefully, thanks to witty touches and stage direction by Paul Agnew and Sophie Daneman.'
Vivien Schweitzer/New York Times, September 26, 2011
CD: Wolf, Complete Songs Vol.1/Stone Records, 2011
'It’s a particular delight to hear Sophie Daneman’s soprano take instinctively to the gentle mordancy of the little tale of a boy and a bee...'
Classicalmusic.com, 2011
Oxford Lieder Festival, October, 2010
'It is always a pleasure to hear Sophie Daneman, and she was in top form both in the more whimsical songs, such as Der Knabe und das Immlein (The lad and the bee) and Nixe Binsefuss (The water-sprite Redfoot), and in the more reflective ones, such as Zum neuen Jahr (A New Year poem), the quizzical Frage und Antwort (Question and answer) and An den Schlaf. (To sleep) with its hint of mortality. She displayed a strong empathy with the plight of Das verlassene Mägdlein (The abandoned girl) lighting a fire at dawn, while her elation bubbled over Er ists (Spring is here).'
Roger Jones/Seen and Heard, October, 2010
Venus and Adonia/York/July, 2010
'Sophie Daneman’s irrepressible Venus went to the very extremes of ecstasy or elegy, nowhere more than in her reactions to Adonis’s untimely death in the hunting field, heart-wrenching indeed.'
Martin Dreyer/The Press, July 19, 2010
Tokyo String Quartet: Palau de la Musica, Valencia, April 2010
'Daneman cantó estupendamente estas piezas, y todavía mejor en los dos últimos movimientos del Segundo cuarteto de Schoenberg.'
Levante, April 16, 2010
'Sophie Daneman los cantó con toda la contención e intimidad que esta música requiere. Su voz, de registros uniformes y bien coloreados, se acopla como un guante al dificil terreno del Lied. Canta también ópera, pero sabe diferenciar terrenos.'
El Pais, April 17, 2010
Wigmore Hall/ Concordia - July 14, 2009
'Soprano Sophie Daneman - a baroque specialist who is also a whizz at Bernstein... Daneman has a big and forceful sound...'
The Independent/ Michael Church - July 22, 2009
CD: Samson, Göttingen Festival Orchestra, 2008
'...Sophie Daneman is on sparkling form as Dalila...'
Gramophone, August, 2009
Skellig - The Sage, Gateshead 2008
'...Sophie Daneman (warmly lyrical as she sings to her frail child) and Paul Keohone get under the skin of Michael's distracted parents.'
The Independent, December 3, 2008
'...and to have a singer of Sophie Daneman's stature in the role of his mother is a real luxury. Her plangent aria by her baby's hospital bedside is Machover's most conventionally lyrical piece of writing, yet Daneman delivers it with a pure intensity of tone, making it the emotional highlight of the score. Skellig may be a strange form of heavenly creature, but Daneman has the most angelic voice on display.'
The Guardian, November 26, 2008
Le nozze di Figaro – Grange Park 2006
'The outstanding performance was Sophie Danemants Susanna, her soprano as bright and her singing as pointed as a new pin, her persona mature but alluring/. We need to see Daneman in more of the lighter Mozart roles.'
Hugh Canning/ Opera Magazine, August 2006
'… Sophie Daneman is a charming Susanna, sweetly besotted with her groom, yet sexily undressing down to a slip while exchanging outfits with the Countess in her deh vieni.'
The Stage, June 22, 2006
Grange Park Opera/A Wonderful Town - 2004
For me, the big wow of the evening, both in her performance and in the suprise element, was Sophe Daneman as Eileen. A 'surprise' because Daneman is better known as an (excellent) exponent of Baroque repertoire. She has done one musical before, but, judging by this performance, was more like a veteran and should be snapped up immediately for musical theatre. Few classical singers cross the line sucessfully, but Daneman tempers her voice perfectly, with wonderful fluidity of diction in both dialogue and song, producing a particularly memorable 'A Little Bit in Love'. On top of this, her American accent was perfect, her characterisation individual, focused, and sweetly funny, resulting in a totally believable blond bombshell in her Marilyn Monroe dress.'
Antonia Couling/Opera Now, Nov/Dec, 2004
'Sophie Daneman is the undoubted star of the evening, playing Eileen as a ditsy, Marilynesque platinum blonde and singing with gracefully offhand charm.'
Rupert Christiansen/The Telegraph, July 2, 2004
'She is nicely contrasted with the glamorous sister, Eileen, sung superbly by Sophie Daneman.'
Edward Greenfield/The Guardian, June 24, 2004
Apollo's Fire/Fire and Folly, 2010
'...Daneman's gleaming, soft-edged sophrano was as vivid as the orchestra in Vivaldi, Handel and Rameau.'
Erica Jeal/guardian.co.uk, December 2, 2010
'In arias by Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau and Purcell, Daneman applied her pulsing, flexible voice to women under extreme stress, inhabiting each moment as if in full-scale operatic action. The soprano managed the swift changes from anger o ardor in Vivaldi's "Due tiranni ho nel mio cor" with breathtaking urgency and revealed a young queen's insecurity to heartrending effect in Cleopatra's soliloquy from Handel's "Julius Caesar." The terror Phedre experiences as a woman in love with her stepson could be felt in the way Daneman shaded phrases in "Cruelle mer des amours" from Rameau's "Hyppolite et Aricie." Her account of Dido's Lament from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" was a touch with sublimity.'
Donald Rosenberg/Cleveland.com, November 19, 2010
Discography
BEETHOVEN
Irish, Welsh and Scottish Songs
With Paul Agnew, Peter Harvey
Astree Naïve 2984908850
2001
CHARPENTIER
Medee- la Victoire & l’Italienne
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Harmonia Mundi HMC90 1139/41
1995
Les plaisirs de Versailles / la Musique
Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
Erato 0630-14774-2
1996
La Descente d'Orphee aux enfeers (Euridice)
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 0630-1193-2
1995
Divertissements, Airs et Concerts
La dispute des bergers/ La pierre philosophale
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 3984-25485-2
1999
COUPERIN
Lecons de Tenebres
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 0630-17067-2
1997
COWARD
A Noel Coward Songbook
With Ian Bostridge, Jeffrey Tate
EMI 5 5734-2
2002
DESMARETS
Grands Motets
Les Arts Florrisants / William Christie
Erato
HANDEL
Rodelinda (Rodelinda)
Raglan Baroque Players / Nicholas Kraemer
Virgin Classics VCT 5 45277-2
Utrecht Te Deum
The Parley of Instruments, John Scott
Hyperion CDA6700
Acis and Galatea – Galatea
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 3984-22505-2
1999
Gramophone Early Opera Award 2000
Theodora (Theodora)
Les Arts Florissants/William Christie
Erato 0927-43181-2
2002
LINLEY
The Songs of Moses
The Parley of Instruments, Peter Holman
Hyperion CDA67038
1997
LULLY
Les Divertissements de Versailles
Grandes Scenes Lyriques
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 0927-44655-2
2002
MENDELSSOHN
Songs and Duets, Volume 1
Nathan Berg, Eugene Asti
Hyperion CDA66906
1997
Songs and Duets, Volume 2
Stephan Loges, Eugene Asti
Hyperion CDA67137
Songs and Duets – Volume 3
Sarah Connolly, Mark Padmore, Stephan Loges, Eugene Asti
Hyperion CDA67388
2004
MONDONVILLE
Grands Motets
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 0630-17791-2
1997
MONTECLAIR
Jepthe (Iphise)
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Harmonia Mundi HMC90 1424.25
1992
PERGOLESI
Marian Vespers
Academy of Ancient Music, Higginbottom
Erato 0927-48684-2
PURCELL
Dido and Aeneas (Second Woman & First Witch)
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Harmonia Mundi HMC90 5173
RAMEAU
Castor et Pollux (La Suivante d’Hebe)
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Harmonia Mundi HMC 90 1435/7
1993
Les fetes d’Hebe (Hebe & Eglé)
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 3984-21064-2
Gramophone Early Opera Award
1998
La Guirlande / Zephyre (Zelide)
Les Arts Florrisants / William Christie
Capella Coloniensis des WDR
Erato 8573-85774-2
2001
Les grands Motets
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
Erato 4509-96967-2
1994
Gramophone Baroque Vocal Award 1995
Les grands Motets/ DVD
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
SCHUMANN
Liderkreis etcJulius Drake
EMI CDZ 572 828-2
1998
VIVALDI
Ottone in Villa (Tullia)
CM90 / Richard Hickox
Chandos 0614
Repertoire
BERNSTEIN
Wonderful Town (Eileen Sherwood)
DEBUSSY Pelléas et Mélisande (Melisande)
HANDEL
Acis and Galatea (Galatea)
Arianna in Creta (Arianna)
Giulio Cesare (Cleopatra)
Rodelinda (Rodelinda)
Semele (Semele)
Theodora (Theodora)
HAYDN
L’Anima del Filosofo (Euridice)
MONTEVERDI
L’Orfeo (Euridice)
MOZART
La clemenza di Tito (Servilia)
Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna)
PURCELL
Dido and Aeneas (Belinda)
RAMEAU
Hippolyte et Aricie (Phedre)
VIVALDI
Ottone in Villa (Tullia)
Schedule
Westminster Abbey
24 May 2012 19.00
Thursday, 24th May 2012, 19:00
Lufthansa Baroque Festival
Silete venti and Ode for St Cecilia’s Day
Thomas Hobbs
The Choir of Westminster Abbey
St. James's Baroque
James O'Donnell
