Born in Stockholm, Sweden and raised in a musical Italian family, Désirée Baraula Massari studied at the Opera Academy in Stockholm where she graduated in 2015. Then she immediately took part in the Young Artist Programme at the National Opera in Oslo, Norway.
During these two years she interpreted roles like Tisbe in la Cenerentola, Mercédès in Carmen, Annina in la Traviata, Glascha in Katja Kabanova. She has also been the vocal solist, together with the Norwegian National Ballet, in the performances of Anna Karenina, by choregrapher Christian Spuck, and in the Ballet gala evening performance Mesteraften!, by choreographers Kylián, Forsythe and Øyen.
Other repertoire which she has performed, are roles like Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Cherubino in le Nozze di Figaro, la mère d’Antonia in les Contes D’Hoffman, Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana and der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos. In October 2014, she interpreted the role of Zerlina in the newly composed opera, Min bror är Don Juan with music by Mozart and Niklas Brommare at the Royal Opera in Stockholm.
She has several times won scholarships from the Swedish Royal Music Academy and in 2015, she won the Bayreuth scholarship. In December 2016, she was chosen to sing at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, which was held for the Columbian president Manuel Santos.
In 2018, we saw her in the Titlerole of Carmen at the Operaen in Kristiansund and also in Hjertnes Kulturhus in Sandefjord, Norway.
She was recently seen at the Norwegian National Opera as The Sorceress in a production of Dido and Aeneas by director and choreographer Andreas Heise. Other roles at the Norwegian National Opera include Maddalena in Rigoletto and Mezzosoprano again in Christian Spuck´s ballet Anna Karenina.
She returned there in January 2020, when she interpreted the role of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and
later that year as Suora Zelatrice in Suor Angelica.
In summer of 2021, she sang the part of Zaida in a new successful production of Rossini ´ s Il Turco in Italia at Glyndebourne Opera Festival conducted by Sesto Quatrini and directed by Mariame Clément.
A year later, she interpreted the role of Emilia in Otello by G. Verdi at OscarsborgOperaen in Norway and later that same year, she was seen at the Norwegian Opera singing the role of Sylva in Czardàsfürstinnen by E. Kalmàn, in norwegian.
She has worked with conductors like Antonino Fogliani, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Tomas Hanos, Daniele Callegari, Xian Zhang, Paul Connelly, Bjarte Eike, Carlo Rizzi, Keri-Lynn Wilson and directors as Willy Decker, Thaddeus Strassberger and Stefan Herheim.
