Opera singer Danielle de Niese: 'I lost my singing voice when I was pregnant. I was in a panic'

Danielle de Niese was born in April 1979 in Melbourne, Australia. At the age of nine, she became the youngest winner of the Australian TV competition Young Talent Time. A few years later, her family moved to Los Angeles, USA, where she became a regular host of the TV show LA Kids, for which she won an Emmy Award at the age of 16. By this time, she’d already made her professional operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera.

She made her Broadway debut at 18, in Les Miserables, and the following year she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in a production of The Marriage Of Figaro. She has since become a star of international opera, performing with the Royal Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, Hamburg State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Teatro Regio, Turin, among many others. She has also released six albums.

In her Letter to My Younger Self, she looks back on her early days, losing her voice and relationships with family

I’d love to relive that day I won a live TV talent show [in her native Australia] just to ask my nine-year-old self what she was feeling. You know when you look back on a childhood memory, if there’s a video of it or a photo you remember the feelings associated with that photo, and your memory and the photo or the video become one and the same. So when I see that photo, I think about how nervous I must have been, but I looked really, really calm. I know I remembered everything that I practised. And I still can’t believe it when I look at the video, it makes me cry. I still think it was so remarkable that I was able to do that.

Moving to LA when I was 11 was a big adventure. I mean, when you’re a kid you just do what your parents want to do. I remember getting on the plane from Australia, and the plane being almost empty. It was insane. I remember us running around looking at how many windows and seats there were. But that first year in LA was so much fun. 

I do remember winning an Emmy when I was 16 [she was a host for TV show LA Kids]. That was totally wild. I mean, I was so young. The episode that I won for was called Aids and You. And it was about children who had got the HIV infection through blood transfusions or other accidental ways. And we brought two of the kids on stage with us. So that was quite hard hitting, to bring the young kids on stage who had the HIV infection. It was the ’90s, so there was still a chance that the medicines in existence at the time might not see them into adulthood. So it was very, very emotional as well.

I made my first outing in the Los Angeles opera when I was 15. The thing I remember most about that was just how much older everyone was compared to me. Everybody was so grown up. And they were all super professional, established singers. And I was just so young. I remember that the love interest that I had was a decent amount older than me. We had to do a stage kiss, and that was so intense to work on. I remember just looking around at all my colleagues and just being so inspired by them. They were all so wonderful, so professional, such a family. That was a beautiful way to make my debut. I was really cradled by this family of creatives. And I keep in touch with many of them. 

I had already decided I wanted to be an opera singer in my early teens. I had done musicals. I was doing television. I knew that even though I wanted to do all of those things, I wanted most to be an opera singer. There’s kind of a theme flowing in my life where I’ve been able to use all of my skill sets. It has been fascinating to see all the different ways in which the training I’ve had has come into play. So even now, I’m directing for the very first time in a new production, The Marriage of Figaro. I’m having the best time where everything that I imagine is something I can put on its feet. So it’s kind of amazing to flex different muscles.

As a kid, I was probably someone that was a little bit shy, but ultimately outgoing. I mean, if we were at a party and someone said, ‘Danni, why don’t you come and sing something?’ the first thing I would think was oh my god. I didn’t want to. But then I always did, and I loved it. I think there was a dichotomy within me. I don’t feel shy now because I have come into my own, but as a child I certainly did. But I think most people would probably remember me as a very fun, loving and always happy child. And a lot of people who’ve met me later in life, who knew me back then, have told me that I’ve just not changed at all. I’m proud of that, that the essence of me is still here, in me.

Something I totally took for granted when I was young, was that I grew up in America in the ’90s, and it was a time that was so culturally inclusive. If someone had told me, later in your life, landmark court rulings like Roe vs Wade are going to be undone, I wouldn’t have believed it. Do you know that later in your life there’s going to be a resurgence of hot-button topics like racism? I would have said, no way. I don’t believe that’s the country that I know, that I feel is part of my identity. We had so much precedent in our country, fighting and fighting and fighting to achieve these landmarks, I thought there was no way they could ever be overturned.

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If I was to go back to my younger self, I’d probably tell myself to enjoy my success and my self-belief a bit more. I’ve always had to have self-belief because you just can’t be a performer without it. You have to get up on stage, and self-belief has to triumph in order to get up there. But I would love to tell myself, enjoy this more. That sounds so weird, right? Because I just was saying I’m such a happy person. But as an artist, I’m always searching, so that’s part of the journey. I’m always looking for more. I guess I would just tell myself to be at peace with what I believe about myself. 

For me, my priority is storytelling. So the thing I look for when I’m performing is the sense that the public has received what I’m giving them and gives it back to me through their energy. That’s what I look for. So that, I guess, is a form of validation. It’s a form of ‘I’m seeking to have a shared experience with you and hope you feel what I feel’.

I lost my singing voice when I was pregnant and I was in a right old panic. The only uptick was I sounded super sexy. I sounded like a Bond girl. That bit I did love. But my vocal cords weren’t vibrating well. I went to see my doctor. He looked at my cords. He was like, “Oh, they’re filled with fluid, because you’re gonna have a baby in three weeks. Have your baby and then come see me after.” And I thought, if he’s fine about it, then I’m gonna try to be fine about it. 

I went back to work three weeks and three days after the birth. It was a wild time for me. I jumped off a set piece and injured both my ankles because my joints were all so loosey goosey from the hormones in pregnancy. So I ended up on crutches. On my lunch breaks I had my legs in ice and I was feeding a baby. It was pandemonium, but it was kind of awesome. I felt so enriched in a way that I cannot even put into words. I wish for all women to marvel at their own self power, because it is staggering.

If I could have one last conversation with anyone… it’s not someone who’s passed on, but it is someone close to me who’s lost his ability to speak, and that’s my dad. My dad has an illness called Multiple System Atrophy. I would wish to have one last conversation with him, where he could speak back to me, because I talk with him all the time. I’m very close to my parents. My mum is the epicentre of my life; basically a huge inspiration to me. But given that my dad can’t speak right now, I would love for him to be given the powers of speech one more time, to have one free-flowing conversation with him [de Niese’s father sadly died a few days after this interview.]

If I could relive one day of my life, my debut at Glyndebourne was one of the highest-flying moments that anyone would wish for in their entire career. So if I was gonna pick a professional day, I’d pick that day. I was 25 or 26. It was the longest ovation I’ve ever had. It was a catapulting moment, and my life was never the same after. 

The Marriage of Figaro directed by Danielle de Niese tours England and Wales until 27 September

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