PATRICIA PETIBON

PATRICIA PETIBON

Patricia Petibon (born 27 February 1970) is a French coloratura soprano who has been acclaimed for her interpretations of French Baroque music.

Born in Montargis, she initially studied plastic arts, then studied at the Conservatoire de Paris after earning a bachelor's degree in musicology, and won the Conservatory's first prize in 1995.

Petibon has worked with William Christie; John Eliot Gardiner; Marc Minkowski; Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Wien; Robert Wilson and even the French Rap group Futuristiq. She has recorded the works of Lully, Charpentier, Rameau, Landi, Couperin, Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, Caldara, Bernstein, Barber, Bruno, Dello Joio, Debussy, Mancini, Méhul, Jommelli, Offenbach, Delibes, Poulenc, and Nicolas Racot de Grandval. Recently, she has been performing as Olympia in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffman, in which she has a simulated nude scene.

In June 2007 Petibon was to return as Olympia to the Vienna State Opera where in February 2006 she had sung Oktavian in Der Rosenkavalier. But she was replaced by Jane Archibald without any official statement or comment by the State Opera or by Petibon. Also Petibon's engagement at the Salzburg Festival 2007 was cancelled.

In December 2007 Petibon gave an acclaimed recital at Vienna's Konzerthaus.

In January 2008 Petibon sings in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites at the Theater an der Wien replacing another singer who fell ill.

In July 2008 Petibon is scheduled to sing in five performances of the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda by Federico Moreno Torroba at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna (alongside Plácido Domingo and Maria José Montiel).

Petibon is married to French composer Eric Tanguy, with whom she has a son, Leonard.