Victoire Bunel

Recognised for her great musicality and rich vocal timbre, Victoire Bunel just finished her Master at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris where she received first prize honours in singing.

She began her musical education at the age of 8, studying the piano at the Conservatoire Nadia et Lili Boulanger in Paris where she spent two years with Claire Marchand and Christine Morel. Her artistic sensibility was developed, to a large extent, at the Maîtrise de Radio France, where she received a full musical and vocal education of the highest quality under the direction of Toni Ramon. She then joined the Département Supérieur pour Jeunes Chanteurs, founded and directed by Laurence Equilbey, where she passed her Diplôme d’Etudes Musicales (musical studies diploma) with distinction, unanimously awarded by the jury. Victoire Bunel also graduated from the Sorbonne in 2009 with a degree in musicology.

The young mezzo-soprano is interested in a wide range of repertoires. She gives recitals of French melodies and Lieder with piano at the Wigmore hall (Crying out Loud cycle), the Théâtre impérial de Compiègne, at the Petit Palais in Paris… but also with orchestra, notably under the direction of Emmanuelle Haïm at the Hôtel National des Invalides or with Martin Gester at the Musée de l’armée in Paris. Recently she was invited to the French radio France Musique on the Gaëlle Le Gallic show “Génération jeunes interprètes” with her pianist Sarah Ristrocelli with whom she won the Gabriel Fauré – Déodat de Séverac special prize at the VIII Concours International de Mélodie Française (International Competition of French Melodies) in Toulouse. She was a participant at the Udo Reinemann Masterclass in Brussels where she had worked among other with Anne Sofie von Otter, Julius Drake and Dietrich Henschel.

With a passion for acting, Victoire Bunel has also developed strong operatic skills. In 2012, during her residence at Royaumont Abbey, she made her stage debut in the role of Abel in Scarlatti’s Cain with Stéphane Fuget. In 2013 she was Valetto in Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea in Paris, in a show by Vincent Vittoz  Les 10 Minutes, in Miss Page’s role in Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor by Otto Nicolaï, as Mélisande in Pélleas et Mélisande by Debussy in Paris, as Pallas in Hélène by Saint-Saëns, as Martha in Faust by Gounod with the Royal Academy,  recently as Jenny in The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill at the Shoreditch Town Hall in London, as Speranza in L’Orfeo by Monteverdi at the Festival de Beaune, as Théone in Phaéton by Lully in Perm (Russia) and at the Opéra Royal de Versailles (France) with le Poème Harmonique (Conductor V. Dumestre, Stage B. Lazar) and as Paula  in Le Miroir d’Alice by T.Nguyen at the Opéra de Reims.

Recently she was at the Philharmonie in Paris for three different concerts, one with the Ensemble Intercontemporain for two Ligeti’s pieces, Requiem and Grand Macabre , another one with the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine for the 3 poèmes de Mallarmé by Ravel and the last one with the Orchestre de Paris for Manfred by Schumann with Daniel Harding.

Soon Victoire Bunel will sing for a Bizet’s concert with the Opéra National de Bordeaux, she will have a recital in Paris with Sarah Ristorcelli, she will be Siegrüne in Die Walküre by Wagner with l’Opéra National de Bordeaux (c. Paul Daniel), and she will sing some extracts from Les Nuits d’été by Berlioz at the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse for a concert series tribute to Nijinski.

Victoire Bunel is grateful for the generous support of the Fondation Meyer, the Safran Foundation for Music, the Tokyo Foundation as well as the Accenture’s Foundation.