Marianne Crebassa

Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa made a major impact when she emerged on the international scene in the mid-2010s with performances of French opera and song.
Crebassa was born in Béziers in southern France on December 14, 1986. She lived in Agdé and Montpellier, studying at conservatories in both places. In Montpellier, she appeared in a Montpellier Opera performance of Schumann’s Manfred, and a concert performance at the Festival de Radio France of Bernard Herrmann’s opera Wuthering Heights gained her wide attention. She has continued to perform at this festival even after achieving international popularity. In Montpellier, she studied voice, piano, and musicology; this well-rounded education and her early performances won her a place in the Young Artist Program of the Opéra National de Paris. That brought her stage experience in a wide variety of music: Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, and Berg’s Lulu, among others.
After graduating in 2012, Crebassa made an impressive splash: she appeared (as Irene) opposite Plácido Domingo in Handel’s Tamerlano, and she returned the following year as Cecilio in Mozart’s Lucia Silla, a role in which she later made her debut at Italy’s La Scala. In 2014, she created the title role in the new opera Charlotte Salomon by composer Marc-André Dalbavie. Crebassa made top-level appearances in the U.S. with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in 2015, in a program of French vocal works) and at the Chicago Lyric Opera (in 2016, as Stephano in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette). Signed to the Erato label, Crebassa released her debut album, Oh Boy!, a collection of “pants role” arias, in 2016. She also portrayed Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at houses in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Vienna during this period.
Secrets, an album of French mélodies with high-profile pianist Fazil Say as accompanist, followed in 2017. A busy 2017-2018 season for the singer included concerts conducted by Daniel Barenboim to celebrate the Debussy 2018 centenary, a recital in the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and a debut in the role of Debussy’s Mélisande, as well as returns to La Scala (as Irene) and to Chicago as Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Several of Crebassa’s performances have been released on DVD, including one of Ravel’s Shéhérazade in concert at the Waldbühne in Berlin in 2019. In 2021, Crebassa returned on Erato with the album Séguedilles, featuring little-known Spanish examples of the form as well as music by Bizet. ~ James Manheim