Biography
With her “deep and magnetic” timbre, Camille Merckx impressed particularly this season in the role of Marion in Les Ailes du désir by Othman Louati, presented in January at the Dijon opera house and then in May at the Nantes and Rennes opera houses.
After a degree in musicology at the Sorbonne and a Diplôme Supérieur from the Jeune Chœur de Paris, she continued her training at the opera studio La Monnaie in Brussels, where she sang Garcia / Don Quichotte by Massenet conducted by Marc Minkowski and Musico / Manon Lescaut by Puccini conducted by Carlo Rizzi.
She was then invited to the Lausanne opera house (Rossini’s Isaura /Tancredi and Massenet’s Rosette/Manon), the Festival d’Aix en Provence (Rihm’s Jakob Lenz), the Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia (Wagner’s Flosshilde/Ring), at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maitre) and at the Lille Opera house, where she created the roles of La Reine/ La Secrétaire/ La maitresse de maison in Gérard Pesson’s Trois Contes.
She has also sung the roles of Ottavia /L’Incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi, Sorceress /Dido and Aenas by Purcell, the title role of Carmen by Bizet conducted by Alphonse Cemin, and Dulcinée / Don Quichotte by Massenet at several festivals.
She has been collaborating for several years with the ensemble Le Balcon and its conductor Maxime Pascal, confirming her taste for the contemporary repertoire. Together they have performed Fernando Fizsbein’s Avenida de los incas, in which she sang Alma, Boulez’s Marteau sans Maitre, and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, in which she was Dryade. She also sang the Alto-solo part in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Maxime Pascal at the Nouveau Siècle in Lille. She performed the same work again at the Maribor Festival in Slovenia, in Schoenberg’s chamber version of it.
Directed by Jacques Osinsky, she performed the contralto roles of Minister/Narrator/Mother in George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill conducted by Alphonse Cemin at the Théâtre de l’Athénée, the Lille Opera and the Théâtre de Caen. She was invited to reprise these roles in another production directed by Tim Murray at the Teatro del Canal in Madrid, in collaboration with the Teatro Real.
In concert, she has sung Mozart’s Requiem with Benjamin Levy and the Orchestre de Cannes, Vivaldi’s Gloria with Julien Chauvin and the Concert de la Loge, and Duruflé’s Requiem accompanied by Vincent Warnier on the composer’s organ at the Église Saint Étienne du Mont.
In recital, she has performed in programmes of French mélodies at Flagey in Belgium and at the Petit Palais in Paris (Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson, songs by Duparc, Chabrier, Hahn, etc.), as well as in a programme of early twentieth-century music with Alphonse Cemin featuring Schoenberg, Weil and Debussy.
While continuing to play the viola da gamba and dance the tango, she is preparing a musical show based on the life and repertoire of Julie d’Aubigny, known as Mademoiselle de Maupin, the first Alto of the Paris Opera in the 17th century.
Opera
Bacri – Fleur et le Miroir magique – L’Oiseau*
Benjamin – Into the Little Hill – Ministre/ Narrateur/ Mère*
Bizet – Carmen – Mercedes*, Carmen*
Britten – Albert Herring – Nancy
Destouches – Le Carnaval et la Folie – la Folie*
Donizetti – Lucrezia Borgia – Mafio Orsini
Fiszbein – Avenida de los Incas 3518 – Alma*
Filidei – L’Inondation – la Voisine
Glück – Orphée et Eurydice – Orphée
Gounod – Faust – Dame Marthe*
Haendel – Rinaldo – Goffredo
Haendel – Alcina – Ruggiero
Lully – Atys – Cybèle
Massenet – Don Quichotte – Garcias*, Dulcinée*
Massenet – Thérèse – Thérèse
Massenet – Manon – Rosette*
Menotti – Le Consul – La mère
Mernier – La Dispute – Hermiane
Meyerbeer – Les Huguenots – la Dame d’honneur*
Monteverdi – L’incoronazione di Poppea -Ottavia* et Arnalta*
Monteverdi – Orfeo – Messagiera
Offenbach – Les Contes d’Hoffmann – Nicklaus* et La Mère*
Pesson – Trois contes – La Reine*, La Secrétaire*
Puccini – Suor Angelica – Suor Zelatrice*
Puccini – Il tabarro – Frugola*
Puccini– Manon Lescaut – Musico*
Purcell – Dido and Aenas – Sorceress*, Dido
Ravel – L’heure espagnole – Conception
Rihm – Jakob Lenz – une voix*
Rossini – L’Italienne à Alger – Isabella
Rossini – Tancrède – Isaura*
Strauss – Ariadne auf Naxos – Dryade*
Strauss – Salomé – le Page
Tchaïkovsky – Eugène Oneguine – Olga
Verdi – Rigoletto – Maddalena*
Wagner – Das Rheingold – Flosshilde*
Concert
Boulez – Le Marteau sans Maitre*
Brahms – Zwei Gesänge op.91*
Brahms – Alt Rhapsodie
Clérambault – Médée*
Duruflé – Requiem*
Dvorák – Requiem*
Dvorák – Mass in D*
Haydn – Ariane à Naxos*
Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde*
Mahler – Rückert Lieder*
Mahler– Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen*
Mahler – Urlicht – symphonie n°2
Monteclair – La mort de Didon*
Monteverdi – Lettera amorosa*
Mozart – Requiem*
Pergolesi – Stabat Mater*
Rachmaninov – Vêpres*
Suarez Cifuentes – I/(I)/I Femmes*
Suarez Cifuentes – Hétérochronies*
Verdi – Requiem*
Vivaldi – Nisi Dominus*
Vivaldi – Stabat Mater*
*Chanté en scène