Apolline Raï-Westphal

Soprano Apolline Raï-Westphal studied at the CNSMD in Paris, from which she graduated in 2024 with a unanimous “prix de chant mention très bien”. A prizewinner in several opera competitions, she won the Académie Ravel prize in 2023, and was awarded 6 prizes at the Gordes International Melody Competition the same year. For the 2023/2024 season, she joins the Brahms class of the Académie Musicale Philippe Jarrousky. She has just won 1st prize for French melody at the 2024 Marmande International Competition.

2022 marks her debut at the Opéra Comique in Glück’s Armide. Since then, Apolline’s career has developed on a number of leading stages, including the Wiener Konzerthaus, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Opéra d’Avignon, Opéra de Rennes, Capitole de Toulouse and Opéra de Nice. Already highly regarded in the Baroque repertoire, she has already collaborated with conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Leonardo García Alarcón, Alexis Kossenko, Camille Delaforge and Johannes Pramsohler. Her young career has already seen her appear in Purcell’s Didon et Enée at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées (Belinda), Glück’s Armide at the Opéra Comique (Phénice et Lucinde), Lully’s Atys at the Wiener Konzerthaus and the Opéra Royal de Versailles (Melpomène et Mélisse), Joséphine Stephenson’s Narcisse (Chloé) and the title role in Régis Campo’s La petite Sirène. She has just been invited back by the Opéra Comique to sing several roles in Lully’s Armide.

In concert, she has appeared under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadesus alongside Karine Deshayes as part of the Les Etoiles du Classique festival, in recital at the Capitole de Toulouse alongside pianist Anne Le Bozec in the “Mozart jeune homme” program, and with Bertrand Chamayou and Noemi Gasparini in a program of French mélodies. She sings in the “Tragic Handelian figures” program with Les Talens lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset, as well as several programs of Bach cantatas with Les Ambassadeurs. She is a frequent guest at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and the Présence Compositrices festival, and performs regularly in recital with the duo she forms with pianist Paul Coispeau.

Projects this season include Honneger’s Danse des morts and Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna at Opéra de Nancy, the role of Minerve in Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise at Opéra de Nantes and Rennes, the soprano 2 in Bach’s La Passion selon St Matthieu at the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence, the role of the Little Mermaid at the Opéra d’Avignon, a recital at the Opéra de Massy alongside soprano Natalie Dessay, and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with the Voix Nouvelles prizewinners. She tours France and Italy in a program of 17th-century Italian music with Les Talens lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset, in duet with her sister Thaïs Raï-Westphal. She records Rameau’s Les Fêtes de Ramire in Versailles with La Chapelle Harmonique, the solo soprano in Mozart’s Mass in C in Paris, and is invited back to the Festival des Etoiles du classique. She will sing the role of the witch in Purcell’s The Witch of Endor at La Seine Musicale, and will be back this summer at the Festival Ravel with Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Mallarmé.

On disc, she recently recorded the roles of Melpomène and Mélisse in Lully’s Atys, conducted by Christophe Rousset and Les Talens lyriques and released in January 2024 on the Château de Versailles label, as well as the soon-to-be-released tale of beauty from Lully’s Mariage forcé, conducted by Camille Delaforge.