Violaine Le Chenadec

Soprano

A French soprano highly acclaimed in the Baroque world for the purity of her timbre and her expressive nuance in both opera and sacred music. Trained at the Conservatoire de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, she has successfully combined technical mastery with expressiveness.

Deeply committed to the Baroque repertoire, her career has led her to collaborate with today’s leading period-instrument ensembles: Les Arts Florissants (William Christie and Paul Agnew), Le Poème Harmonique (Vincent Dumestre), L’Ensemble Correspondances (Sébastien Daucé), Pygmalion (Raphaël Pichon), Le Concert Spirituel (Hervé Niquet), L’Escadron Volant de la Reine, Le Banquet Céleste (Damien Guillon), Les Concerts de l’Hostel Dieu (Franck-Emmanuel Comte), Concerto Soave (Jean-Marc Aymes), and Les Folies Françoises (Patrick Cohën-Akenine), performing with them at major international theaters and festivals.

On stage, she stands out for the variety from her repertoire: ranging from roles such as Barberine in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”, Gretel in Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel”, and Sister Constance in Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” as well as Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solennelle” with Ensemble Mélisme(s) (conducted by Gildas Pungier, in partnership with Co[opéra]tive and staged by Jos Houben and Emily Wilson) to Baroque works, including the Second Grace in Rossi’s “Orfeo” under Raphaël Pichon, Ancilla in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s “Histoires Sacrées”, and “Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit” with Sébastien Daucé’s Ensemble Correspondances.

In the realm of oratorio, she has performed as the soprano soloist in Haydn’s “The Creation” and Mozart’s “Mass in C Minor” (complemented by an “Agnus Dei” by Eric Tanguy) with Ensemble Mélisme(s). She has also been invited by Les Arts Florissants to sing the soprano solos in Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Monteverdi’s “Vespers” under the baton of Paul Agnew.

A lover of Renaissance and Baroque music, she thrives in polyphonic and madrigal repertoire, maintaining a special partnership with La Guilde des Mercenaires (Adrien Mabire), with whom she recorded her debut solo album (Riposta), featuring works by Venetian composers of the “Seicento”.

Violaine Le Chenadec is distinguished by her clear, luminous voice, notable for the exquisite beauty of its upper register. Her interpretations combine Baroque refinement with lyrical sensitivity; she moves effortlessly and elegantly from the intimacy of sacred works to dramatic theatricality, all while bringing the music vividly to life.