Sandrine Piau

Although coloratura soprano Sandrine Piau has sung and recorded other types of music, she is best known for her Baroque opera roles. She is an international star with a large catalog of solo recordings. Piau initially established her reputation in Baroque repertory, most notably in the operas of Handel (Tamerlano, Xerxes, and others), but she quickly branched out into the Mozart operas. Among Piau's more successful early efforts was a pair of William Christie-led performances: Handel's Messiah (1994) and Purcell's King Arthur (1995). She has hardly limited herself to the Baroque and Classical periods, however, and her repertory encompasses the Brahms Requiem and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress as well as other 19th and 20th century staples. Piau has remained an adventurous figure who recorded Schumann's Dichterliebe song cycle in 2019 and the album Handel: Enchantresses, featuring the Baroque orchestra Les Paladins, in 2022.