First prize winner of the Competition for Baroque Opera Cesti 2018 and of the Concours International de Belcanto Vincenzo Bellini 2017, soprano Marie Lys created a sensation in 2022 as she stepped in at short notice to replace Cecilia Bartoli for the title role in Damiano Michieletto’s staging of Handel’s Alcina conducted by Gianluca Capuano at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
After a Bachelor in Music at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne with a Prize for the best recital, Marie attended the Royal College of Music in London where she graduated with First Class Honours (2014) and with an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies (2016). She had been a member of the Jeune Ensemble of the Grand Théâtre de Genève where she took part in several productions.
2023 saw the release of her first solo album “Amate Stelle” featuring unpublished baroque opera arias written for Anna Maria Strada she recorded with her own Ensemble Abchordis for the Glossa label.
More recently, Marie Lys made her Theater an der Wien debut as Alzima in a new production of Salieri’s Cublai, Gran Khan dei Tartari under the baton of Christophe Rousset.
She has celebrated considerable success with Handel, performing, for the Göttingen International Handel Festival, Semele (title role) with George Petrou, Ariodante (Ginevra) and Lotario (Adelaide) both under Laurence Cummings. Marie headlined Solomon (First Harlot, The Queen of Sheeba) with Peter Dijkstra/The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra at Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Bellezza) alongside Fabio Biondi in Granada, and Ariodante (Dalinda) at the London Handel Festival. In Halle, she performed Athalia (title role) with Philipp Ahmann and the Leipzig Baroque Orchestra and Jephta (Iphis) with Christophe Rousset. She sang Messiah led by Franco Fagioli in Versailles and Barcelona.
Marie Lys enjoys a close association with the Opera of her hometown Lausanne where she took the stage as Morgana in Handel’s Alcina, Sophie in Massenet’s Werther, Cunégonde in Bernstein’s Candide, Lisa in Bellini’s Sonnambula, Adele in J. Strauss’ Fledermaus…
For Naïve, she has recorded Vivaldi’s Serenata a tre, RV 690 alongside Andrea Buccarella/Abchordis Ensemble and the long-lost opera Argippo by the same composer under Fabio Biondi with whom she also performed the title role in Donizetti’s opera buffa Betly for the Chopin and His Europe Festival in Warsaw. With Christophe Rousset, she recorded Lully’s Atys, released on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label.
On the concert stage, Marie Lys appeared with Fabio Biondi and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for Vivaldi’s Gloria in Rome, and with Andrea Marcon/La Cetra for Vivaldi’s Giustino in Basel and Amsterdam. She joined forces with Leonardo García Alarcón leading his Cappella Mediterranea for a recital at Radio France in Paris and for Philippe d’Orléans’s Jérusalem délivrée, ou la Suite d’Armide in Versailles.
She has also built a strong Mozartian repertoire, including Despina in Così fan tutte under Diego Fasolis at Opéra de Lausanne and Zerlina in Don Giovanni under Emmanuelle Haïm at Opéra de Lille. She sang Mozart’s Great Mass in C accompanied by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón at the Maison de la Radio et de la Musique in Paris and offered the Opéra de Montpellier a recital with Mozart concert and opera arias helmed by Philippe Jarroussky. She performed Mozart’s Requiem and Exsultate jubilate under the baton of John Nelson leading the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.
The 2024/2025 season sees Marie Lys returning to the role of Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in a new Ottavio Dantone/Chiara Muti production in several Italian theatres including Ravenna, Modena, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia and Lucca. She performs Galatea in a new production of Porpora’s Polifemo conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm at Opéra de Lille and debuts the role of Aspasia in Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto under Philippe Jarrousky at Opéra de Montpellier.
Marie teams up with Christophe Rousset for the title role in Lully’s Proserpine at Opéra Royal de Versailles and Theater an der Wien and with Ottavio Dantone for Leocasta in Vivaldi’s Giustino in Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao. Last but not least, she embarks on a European tour with Kammerorchester Basel presenting a Baroque recital.
