On the occasion of Bellini's La Sonnambula opening at Paris's Opéra Bastille (on January 25), it's been a week of heavy rotation for Natalie Dessay, singing Amina in the Marco Arturo Marelli production led by Italian maestro Evelino Pidò.
The petite French soprano spoke to Elle France about her Sonnambula and more: that fateful 2001 Sonnambula in Vienna where she first realized there was a serious problem with her nodes ("it felt like there was a permanent grain of sand stuck in my throat"), her three cats ("Kyste, Polype et Nodule"), what it's like to be a mom with teenagers (aged 11 & 14), and Marelli's production (like Thomams Mann's The Magic Mountain). She also spoke to Le Figaro in depth about her career and the Paris production.