Laetitia Gerards

Soprano
Written By Rozemarijn Tiben

Laetitia Gerards

Soprano

Laetitia Gerards is managed worldwide by Rozemarijn Tiben and Fernando de Testa.

Contact:
Artist Manager
E: rozemarijn.tiben@interartists.nl
T: +31 6 34 272 282

Assistant Artist Manager
E: fernando.detesta@interartists.nl
T: +33 7 48 25 93 63

Dutch soprano Laetitia Gerards is a recipient of the Concertgebouw Young Talent Award and the first prize of the Prinses Christina Concours. Loved by the audience for her disarming stage presence and evident musicality, she enjoys a successful career as a soloist in concert and opera performances. She has performed with the majority of the Dutch professional orchestras, such as the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, het Residentie Orkest, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century.

Laetitia has a special affinity for the American repertoire by composers such as Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin, and impressed as Anna in Die Sieben Todsünden by Kurt Weill in Paradiso in Amsterdam, Anne Egerman in Stephen Sondheim’s A little night music and Eileen in Bernstein’s A wonderful town for Nederlandse Reisopera. Among her operatic successes are her interpretation of Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito in staged performances with the Orchestra of the 18th Century led by Kenneth Montgomery, and Elle in Poulenc’s La voix humaine at the Concertgebouw. Other performed roles include Musetta in La Bohème, Lisette in La Rondiné, both by Puccini, Noémie in Massenets Cendrillon, and Marzelline in Beethovens Fidelio.

In the 2023/24 season, she returns return to Dutch National Opera in the role of Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, among a number of exciting international debuts: she sings the part of Maria in excerpts of Bernstein’s West Side Story in Palermo, and performs a gala concert at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, before returning to the recital hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam where she performs repertoire from the roaring twenties with an ensemble from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Last season, she made her debut on the stages of the Konzerthaus Berlin, Philharmonie Luxembourg and Flagey in Brussels, performing works by Mahler, Elvis Costello and an contemporary opera. She also starred in the production Operetta Land by Steef de Jong at Dutch National Opera, and sang the part of British Dancing Girl in John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer for the NTR Zaterdagmatinee at the Concertgebouw, conducted by the composer himself. She performed festive carnival concerts with philharmonie zuidnederland, and gave numerous song recitals with her pianist Thomas Beijer. Other previous highlights were a series of Bernstein concerts with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw, the premiere of the Bartered Bride (role: Marenka) in Dutch language for Nederlandse Reisopera, a solo concert at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild in Paris with Orchestre Les Métamorphoses, a New Year’s concert with orchestra Phion, and concerts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Calgary and Vancouver upon invitation of the Netherlands-America Foundation.

Laetitia can frequently be seen and heard on Dutch national television. She took part in the reality television game show “Wie is de mol?” in 2022. In May 2021, she performed in a live broadcast of the National Remembrance Day and on Liberation Day at the Royal Theatre Carré.

At the age of five, Laetitia started playing the cello. At thirteen, she was admitted to the Young Musicians Academy of the Fontys School of the Arts in Tilburg. Two years later, she also began studying music theatre at the same conservatoire. Ultimately, Laetitia chose singing as her profession and continued her classical singing studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Sasja Hunnego, with whom she graduated summa cum laude in May 2016. She is currently coached by Magreet Honig.

Highlights 2023-24

September 2023:
Bernstein highlights concerts at Palermo Classica Festival.
Gala Concert at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

November-December 2023:
Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at Dutch National Opera.

April 2024:
Roaring Twenties recital with musicians from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

 
 

Reviews

Marenka in Smetana’s Bartered Bride / Nederlandse Reisopera 2022

“Laetitia Gerards, as Marshenka, led the cast with a crisp and flawless voice and with an engaging stage presence. Her big scene in the third act, sung in front of a mural of a modernised poster of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (now on display in Kunstmuseum Den Haag), stood like a house.
And her duets with the two potential grooms were also highlights. [...] Especially the duet with the stuttering Vasek was wonderfully sung and directed. ”
— Trouw
“Smetana offered Laetitia Gerards delightful melodies that she worked out with her clear soprano voice, to which conductor Spanjaard and the Phion orchestra added an excellent accompaniment. Her first entrance, in which she expresses doubts about Jenik’s love interest, was immediately hit with a grand aria. Gerards convinced with intense expression of her qualities. Also in her playing she characterised herself as a spirited and headstrong daughter. Her good diction made it easy to follow her singing, as was the case with Denzil Delaere and the rest of the cast.”
— Place de l'Opéra
“Marshenka, a star performance by soprano Laetitia Gerards. ”
— De Volkskrant
“But the big star of the performance is the young soprano Laetitia Gerards (now a BN-er thanks to her performance in Wie is de Mol), who turns the main role of Marshenka into a nice streetwise, slightly spoilt girl of nowadays.”
— NRC
“Gerards sings with devotion and crystal-clear diction.”
— De Volkskrant
“Servilia is interpreted with a clear sound by Laetitia Gerards. In her voice, the purity and sincerity of Servilia’s heart resounded.”
— Place de l'Opéra
“Gerards was at her very best in Kurt Weill’s hallucinatory Youkali (Land of Cockaigne). It was beautiful how she and Beijer leaned into that nice habanera rhythm and evoked the yearning for that imaginary world. Also in Solitary Hotel by Samuel Barber, on a text from James Joyce’s Ulysses, Gerards’ theatrical personality emerged naturally.”
— Trouw
“Laetitia Gerards is disarming as Servilia.”
— De Volkskrant
Rozemarijn Tiben
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