Clémentine Margaine

Clémentine Margaine (born 1984 in Narbonne), is a French operatic mezzo-soprano who enjoys an international career and has sung roles from baroque opera to Italian and French romantic leading roles.

Life and career

Margaine's parents were music lovers who got her to learn piano; she also sang solos with the local children's choir. She went on to study law at the university of Montpellier, but was complimented on her voice to an extent that she contacted a singing teacher in Paris who advised her to stop her studies and enter the Paris Conservatoire, where she trained for six years, mainly in the recital repertoire. She won the Special Jury Prize of the Concours International de Chant de Marmande and in 2009 was voted the Révélation Classique in France's annual Victoires de la musique classique awards.Mesmerizing Intensity. Clementine Margaine in Conversation with Roger Pines. ''Opera'', April 2025, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 486–492.

She sang Ascalax in Telemann's '' Die wunderbare Beständigkeit der Liebe'' (''The Wonderful Constancy of Love'') at the 20th Telemann Festival in Magdeburg in February 2010, conducted by David Stern. The following year she appeared at the Bachfest Leipzig as Tamasse in J. C. Bach's '' Zanaida'' and "coped magnificently, especially in the most famous aria", the opera again conducted by Stern with his Opera Fuoco forces. In July 2012 she sang in the first performance in modern times of the 1757 version of Rameau's ''Hippolyte et Aricie'', conducted by Raphaël Pichon, where "the powerful conviction of Clémentine Margaine's Phèdre hatrightly took centre stage. By turns imperious and searing, Margaine's characterization of one of the great tragic figures of opera was nothing less than a triumph". The following year at Beaune she sang the title role in ''Orfeo ed Euridice''; another Rameau opera for her was ''Castor et Pollux'', in which she recorded Phébé, again conducted by Pichon, on Harmonia Mundi.

However Margaine was dissatisfied with the roles she was being put forward for, and went for an audition for Christoph Seuferle, director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, who proposed Third Lady in ''Die Zauberflöte'', the Verdi Requiem and title role in ''Carmen''. She then joined the Deutsche Oper, where in addition she sang Dalila in ''Samson et Dalila'' and Marguerite in ''La Damnation de Faust''. She has sung the role of Carmen at a number of the world's leading opera houses including the Paris Opera, Opera Australia and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 2017, when she won praise for her "vast" range and "subtle art". In the bel canto repertoire she has sung Rebecca in ''Il templario'' at the 2016 Salzburg Festival, Adalgisa in ''Norma'' in Madrid, and Léonor in ''La favorite'' in Munich, Barcelona and at the Caramoor Summer Music Festival.

She appeared as Fidès in a new production of Meyerbeer's ''Le prophète'' at the Deutsche Oper in 2017; with the same company she recorded the title role in ''Hérodiade''. Her Verdi roles have included Azucena in '' Il trovatore'' in Rome, Amneris in ''Aida'' in Sydney, Toronto and Barcelona, and Eboli in the Italian version of ''Don Carlos'' in Verona and Munich and in French in Chicago.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Margaine, Clementine
Conservatoire de Paris alumni
1984 births
French operatic mezzo-sopranos
21st-century French women opera singers
Living people
People from Narbonne