MARIE-CLAUDE BOTTIUS

Soprano

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Endowed with a Great Velvety Voice of Lyric Soprano, Marie-Claude Bottius impresses with her sense of stage drama.

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Dancer and a member of the “Pueri Cantores” choir since early childhood, and holder of a Master’s degree in Organizational Sociology from Sciences Po Paris, this native of Martinique began her training in opera with Christiane Eda-Pierre, graduated from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris in Mireille Alcantara’s class, and continued her studies with Robert Massard, Luisa Mauro (Verdi Conservatory of Milan), Enza Ferrari (La Scala, Milan), Philip Richardson (Royal Chapel of Brussels), Paolo Zanzu (Le Stagioni - Cité de la Voix) et Barbara Frittoli (Metropolitan Opera of New-York).

 

A regular in leading roles (Pamina, Donna Elvira, Monisha, Zamba…), she has built her career around three key artistic areas:

 

• performances of classical and contemporary operatic works

In 2026, she played the role of Monisha in Treemonisha at the Tropiques Atrium, the national theater of Fort-de-France, Martinique, conducted by Peter Valentovic and directed by Hervé-Claude Ilin.

In 2023, she sang in The Threepenny Opera (Brecht/Weill) conducted by Maxime Pascal and Alphonse Cemin (Le Balcon), directed by Thomas Ostermeier at the Comédie Française.

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She reprises the role of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Mozart) on stages across Martinique and Guadeloupe.

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She performed the role of Zamba in Clapisson’s opera Le Code Noir with Les Paladins orchestra, directed by Jean-Pierre Baro and conducted by Jérôme Correas in 2019–2020 in the Île-de-France region and throughout France. That same year, she returned to Mozart to play the role of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni in Italy at the Teatro Fenaroli, conducted by Emilio Marcucci.

In May 2018, she made her debut in the role of Pamina in The Magic Flute (Mozart) at the Artchipel National Theater in Guadeloupe, directed by Annie Milon and conducted by Gaspard Brécourt, with Carib’Opera.

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She sang at the Opéra de Massy in Don Pasquale (Donizetti), the role of the Second Lady in The Magic Flute (Mozart), and the soprano solo part in the Coronation Mass (Mozart), under the baton of Dominique Rouits. With Opéra Paris Outre-Mer, of which she is a founding member and artistic director, she performed the roles of Diamantine (L’Ile de Merlin, Glück) and Mathurine (Le Mariage du Diable ou L’Ivrogne Corrigé, Glück), and performed in recitals conducted by Olivier Holt Casadesus at the Fort-de-France – Martinique Festivals in 2014 and 2017.

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A soloist with the Chœur en Scène company for 10 years, she primarily performs contemporary works by Carlo Carcano, Jean-Christophe Marti, Alexandros Markeas, Zad Moultaka, and Gabriel Sivak. In 2016, she premiered Thierry Machuel’s opera Le Duplicateur there, in the role of the Singer (directed by Yaël Bacri), and also recorded Les Noces (Stravinsky) with Le Balcon (Maxime Pascal).

 

• connecting opera with Afro-descendant culture

In 2026, she created a brand-new show, Suzanne et Léopold, Perles Noires, at La Chapelle du Verbe Incarné during the Avignon Off Festival, based on the poets Suzanne Roussi Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, directed by Hervé-Claude Ilin and set to music by Olivier Calmel.

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In 2024–2025, Marie-Claude performed her new recital, Esclave ou Reine, Exotisme Lyrique, throughout France, exploring the portrayal of Black women in 19th-century French opera, and will release her self-titled debut album.

In 2023, she created an original historical-musical program titled Nos Célèbres Inconnus for France Télévisions’ Overseas Division, with the aim of highlighting forgotten classical artists from France’s overseas territories. She was invited in particular by the Palais de la Porte Dorée (along with Bertrand Dicale) and the Musée du Quai Branly in 2026 to give lecture-concerts on this theme.

From 2020 to 2022, she collaborated with the renowned Guadeloupean dancer Chantal Loïal on the production De Vénus à Miriam au pas de mon chant, a show about the Hottentot Venus and Miriam Makeba. She has performed the works of Chevalier de Saint-George at the Opéra de Massy and in concert recitals with Michael Lonsdale.

 

• the combination of opera with multidisciplinary visual artists

In 2024, she collaborated with visual artist Maxime Rossi to create an original program specifically for the Paris 2024 Olympics. In October–November 2022, she portrayed one of the characters in the work In Total Darkness by renowned visual artist Tavares Strachan, at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris.

Since 2020, she has participated in Maxime Rossi’s multifaceted productions: Quatre vingt et une aventures at La Villette, Oiseau de Paradis at the Centre Pompidou, and Hair’mèches at the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Noisy-le-Sec. In April 2018 and 2019, she performed the work Elegy by South African artist Gabrielle Goliath at the Palais de Tokyo and then at the Basel Festival “It’s the real thing”.