The French soprano Mélissa Petit grew up in Saint-Raphaël and studied singing in her home city and in Nice, before beginning her career in 2010 as a member of the Hamburg State Opera’s International Opera Studio. From 2015 to 2017 she was a member of the ensemble of the Zurich Opera House, singing roles such as Sophie (Werther), Marzelline (Fidelio), Ännchen (Der Freischütz) and Créuse in Charpentier’s Médée.
Since 2017 she has enjoyed great success in various principal roles, including Micaëla (Carmen) and Gilda (Rigoletto) at the Bregenz Festival, and Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. She has appeared at the Paris Opéra in the roles of Giannetta (L’elisir d’amore) and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte). In 2019 she performed Aricie in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie in a co-production of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Zurich Opera House. In 2019 she won third prize in the Paris Opera Competition, which opened the doors to various French opera houses for her: for example, in 2021 and 2023 she appeared as Anna in Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche in Limoges.
She made her Salzburg Festival debut at the 2021 Whitsun Festival as Bellezza (Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno) and as Servilia (La clemenza di Tito). She has also sung Servilia in Zurich, Monte Carlo and on a tour with Cecilia Bartoli.
Other recent successes have included the title role in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) at the Theater an der Wien, her role debut as Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, her house debut as Ilia (Idomeneo) at the Berlin State Opera and her returns to Salzburg in 2023 as Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice) and to Bregenz in 2024 as Amenaide (Tancredi).
Highlights of 2024/25 included Servilia (La clemenza di Tito) and Freia and Woglinde (Das Rheingold) at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and Katerina (The Greek Passion) with Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon at the Festival Pulsations in Bordeaux. She also sang Pergolesi’s Stabat mater with il Pomo d’Oro in Oslo and Lucerne, Handel’s Jephtha at the Barbican Centre, Haydn’s The Creation with the Hungarian National Philharmonic and Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie at the Berlin Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie de Paris.
