Opera singer Danielle de Niese: from Young Talent Time to top soprano A Young Talent Time winner at the age of nine, Danielle de Niese has gone on to become one of the world’s leading opera sopranos. Jane Wheatley Danielle de Niese. Photo: Tina Hillier / Telegraph Media Group Limited 2016 It is a summer evening in England and soprano Danielle de Niese is playing Rosina in The Barber of Seville, a girl on the brink of womanhood, eager for romance and railing at the constraints imposed by her crusty guardian. As the tropes of comic opera play out – the plots, disguises and smuggled letters – de Niese is centre stage: coquettish charmer one minute, sassy schemer the next; stamping, pouting and flouncing among the men who each have a stake in her marriage prospects. At curtain call, she bows to applause from a packed audience, blows kisses to the ...