Praised for her “captivating stage presence” (Edinburgh Music Review), “lively demeanour and bright coloratura” (The Times), Marie Cayeux is quickly gaining recognition as an “immensely promising” (Seen and Heard International) soprano. 

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Currently one of four Glyndebourne Festival mentees as part of the Pegasus Opera Mentorship Programme, the French-Kabylian soprano recently made her debuts at Opéra de Monte-Carlo in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges as the Fire, the Nightingale and the Princess and at Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège as the Fée de Noël in Taralli's Le Château enchanté. Other highlights include making role debuts as Columbine in Smyth's Fête Galante and Barbara in Roman Fever with Pegasus Opera, Ida (and covering Adele) Die Fledermaus with IF Opera, Olympia The Tales of Hoffmann for Brent Opera, reprising Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel with Hampstead Garden Opera, plus covering Woodbird Siegfried and Berta Il barbiere di Siviglia for Longborough Festival Opera. Her next engagements include her return to IF Opera Festival this summer where she will cover the role of Frasquita in Carmen.

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Despite beginning her formal training later than many singers, Marie has quickly built a broad range of operatic experience, working with conductors such as Adam Hickox, Anthony Negus, Peter Robinson, Alex Ingram, Philip Walsh, Philippe Forget, Denis Segond, Lada Valesova,  Rebecca Tong, Tim Ribchester, William Cole, and stage directors like Stephen Lawless, Peter Relton, Franzisca Severin, John Ramster, Dafydd Hall-Williams, Max Hoehn, BAFTA-winner PJ Harris, Caroline Clegg, Callie Nestleroth, Simon Butteriss, Francesco Esposito and Keith Warner. Past roles notably include Papagena (Die Zauberflöte – Bloomsbury Opera), Taumann (Hänsel und Gretel – HGO & RCS Opera), Kitty (Passionnément – Festival Lyrique-en-Mer), Louisa (A Feast in the Time of Plague – RCS Opera) and La Princesse Laoula (L’Etoile – RCS Opera). Marie thrives performing light-lyric coloratura roles: Zerbinetta (Strauss), Blonde (Mozart), Adele (Strauss), Marie (Donizetti), Ophélie (Thomas), Morgana (Handel), La Fée (Massenet), Soeur Constance (Poulenc), Cunegonde (Bernstein) and Lakmé (Delibes).  

 

A committed performer of contemporary music, Marie has been singing the roles of Mrs P. from The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Michael Nyman, Mme Donnadieu in Isabelle Aboulker’s Martin Squelette, First Apple in Jonathan Dove’s The Little Green Swallow, the Fée de Noël in Marco Taralli's Le Château enchanté, Barbara in Philip Hagemann's Roman Fever and The Maid in Elena Langer’s Four Sisters. Furthermore, she sang in the premiere of Geoffroy Colson’s L’esprit du feu at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2018. Most recently, she participated in a workshop on Water, a new environmental opera about our current water crisis, curated by Beverley Andrews. Also keen to work with young composers, Marie participated in the Wigmore Voiceworks, a collaborative project between composers, writers and performers of the Guildhall School. On this occasion, she received the Tracey Chadwell Memorial Award for the Best Performance of a New Work for Voice in 2021, for her performance of "Between Breaths" by composer Pia Rose Scatterwood and writer Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh (watch performance here).

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Passionate about art songs repertoire, Marie has been learning from renowned collaborative pianists such as Iain Burnside, the late Dalton Baldwin, Sholto Kynoch, Julius Drake, Stacey Bartsch, Eugene Asti, Andrew West, Doriana Tchakarova, Sergei Rybin, Gary Matthewmann, Robin Bowman, Audrey Hyland, Dylan Perez and Malcolm Martineau. In 2021, Marie was a Leeds Lieder Festival Young Artist and a semi-finalist of the prestigious Helmut Deutsch International Lied Competition. In 2022, Marie was part of Guildhall’s Song Guild led by acclaimed pianist Graham Johnson and performed at the Milton Court Concert Hall during his concert Poulenc: His Life and Songs. During her time in Scotland, Marie performed Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé under the baton of Cameron Burns on the occasion of RCS’ 175th Anniversary Celebrations and “Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden” as soprano solo in Mahler’s 4th Symphony with the Glasgow International Symphony Orchestra conducted by Magnus Plejdrup.

 

An alumna of Opéra de Monte-Carlo’s Académie Lyrique, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Alexander Gibson Opera School and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s Artist Masters, she won the 2nd Prize at Arles International Opera Competition 2022 and 3rd Prize and Audience Prize at Hurn Court Opera Competition 2022, and received the support of the International Opera Awards Foundation, Help Musicians UK (Sybil Tutton Opera Award 2021 & 2022) and the Hamilton Duval Music Foundation. Aside of the Glyndebourne - Pegasus Opera Mentorship Programme, she currently trains in baroque opera under the tutelage of conductor Stéphane Fuget. Futhermore, she holds a Bachelor in Law from Paris Descartes University.

 

Outside the opera and concert stages, Marie is proud to be involved in educational and outreach work through her regular teaching and performing activities with charities like the Da Capo Music Foundation and Live Music Now.