Victoria de los Ángeles

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Victoria Bond was born in Los Angeles, California, on 6 May 1945, into a deeply musical family. Her father, Philip Bond, was an operatic bass and medical doctor who sang with the New York City Opera; her mother, Jane Courtland, was a concert pianist who studied with Béla Bartók. Her grandfather, Samuel Epstein, was a composer, conductor, and double bass player. Bond began her professional performing career as a soprano, notably as the featured soloist in the premiere performance and recording on Columbia Masterworks of Harry Partch's opera Delusion of the Fury. She married Stephan Peskin in 1974. Bond served as assistant to Pierre Boulez, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Aaron Copland while a student at Juilliard. She was the first American woman to conduct and record in China with the Shanghai Symphony in 1994, and to be appointed Music Advisor to the Wuhan Symphony that same year. Her opera Mrs. President, about Victoria Woodhull, premiered in 2012 in Anchorage, Alaska, and Clara, about Clara Schumann, premiered in 2019 at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival.

Reader's Guide

Victoria Bond's career as a conductor is marked by a series of notable appointments. She was music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1995 and artistic director of Opera Roanoke from 1989 to 1995. Earlier, she served as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony and music director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony from 1978 to 1980. She also conducted national and international tours for Ray Charles orchestral concerts from 1986 to 2003. As a composer, Bond has written operas including The Adventures of Gulliver (2016), commissioned by American Opera Project through Opera America's grant to Female Composers; The Miracle of Light (2017), commissioned by The Young Peoples Chorus of New York City; and Sirens (2017), commissioned by the Roger Shapiro Fund. She assisted film composers Paul Glass and Hugo Friedhofer in orchestrating and ghost-writing film scores for Universal Pictures and Metromedia Studios. Bond is a frequent lecturer at the Metropolitan Opera Guild and has lectured for the New York Philharmonic. Her awards include the Victor Herbert Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Walter Hinrichsen Award, the Perry F. Kendig Award, and the Miriam Gideon Prize. She has received honorary doctorates from Hollins and Roanoke Colleges, and Washington and Lee University.

Did You Know?

• Victoria Bond was the first woman to be awarded a doctoral degree in Orchestral Conducting from the Juilliard School, in 1977.
• She was the first American woman to conduct and record in China with the Shanghai Symphony (1994) and to be appointed Music Advisor to the Wuhan Symphony (1994).
• Bond began her professional performing career as a soprano, and was the featured soloist in the premiere recording of Harry Partch's opera Delusion of the Fury on Columbia Masterworks.
• She served as assistant to Pierre Boulez, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Aaron Copland while a student at Juilliard.
• Her opera Clara, about the life of Clara Schumann, premiered in 2019 at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival.

From Melbourne to the American Stage

Danielle de Niese entered the world on 11 April 1979 in Melbourne, Victoria, the daughter of Chris and Beverly, a couple who had emigrated from Sri Lanka as teenagers. Her heritage blends Sri Lankan Burgher roots with Dutch and Scottish ancestry, a mix that would later inform her remarkably wide musical palette. The victory brought her five thousand Australian dollars and a Yamaha baby grand piano that she still keeps to this day. Two years later, her family relocated to Los Angeles, a move that would reshape her entire trajectory. There she became a familiar face as a guest host on the children's programme L.A. Kids, a role that earned her an Emmy Award at the age of sixteen. By the time she was fifteen, she had already made her professional operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera, setting the stage for a career that would span continents and centuries of repertoire.

A Repertoire Without Borders

De Niese's operatic range is one of the most striking features of her career. Her training included private study with Ruth Falcon and coursework at Mannes College of Music in Manhattan. Over the following decades she has moved fluidly between Baroque, Classical, and contemporary works: Poppea in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, Euridice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Susanna and Despina across multiple Mozart productions, and the title role in Robin de Raaff's RAAF (2004) at the Dutch National Opera. She has also crossed into musical theatre with Les Misérables and into cinema, lending her voice to Ridley Scott's Hannibal. This breadth has taken her from the Glyndebourne Festival to the Bavarian State Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Teatro Regio di Torino.

Breakthroughs and Landmark Performances

Several moments crystallised De Niese's international reputation. In 2005, her portrayal of Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne, directed by David McVicar, brought her widespread critical attention; she reprised the role in 2006 and 2009, and again at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2007. In 2017 she returned to her Australian roots for a stage debut as Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, performing at both the Arts Centre Melbourne and the Sydney Opera House. More recently, she created the title role in Matthew Aucoin's Eurydice (2020) at the Los Angeles Opera and, in 2026, received the Outstanding Contribution to Opera Award at the Laurence Olivier Awards.

Life Beyond the Stage

Away from the opera house, De Niese—affectionately known as Danni to friends and colleagues—built a deeply rooted personal life in England. On 19 December 2009 she married Gus Christie, grandson of John Christie and chairman of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, in a ceremony at St Bartholomew-the-Great in London. The couple now reside at Glyndebourne in Sussex and have two children. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a slide projector full of photographs of her loved ones as her three treasures.

From Los Angeles to the Podium

Victoria Bond's path to the podium began in Los Angeles, where she was born on 6 May 1945. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, studying voice with William Vennard and composition with Ingolf Dahl. She then earned her doctorate at the Juilliard School of Music, studying composition with Roger Sessions and conducting with Jean Morel and Sixten Ehrling. She took masterclasses with Herbert von Karajan and studied with Herbert Blomstedt at the Aspen Music Festival and School. While at Juilliard, she served as assistant to Pierre Boulez, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Aaron Copland. In 1977, she became the first woman to be awarded a doctoral degree in Orchestral Conducting from Juilliard.

A Conductor's Range

Bond's conducting career took her across the United States and internationally. She was music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1995 and artistic director of Opera Roanoke from 1989 to 1995. She held the position of Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1978 to 1980, and was music director and conductor of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony during the same period. She served as artistic director of the New Amsterdam Symphony from 1978 to 1980, and as guest conductor of the Albany Symphony from 1980 to 1985. She was music director of the Empire State Youth Orchestra from 1980 to 1985. Bond was an assistant conductor at the New York City Opera in 1985. She conducted national and international tours for Ray Charles orchestral concerts from 1986 to 2003. In 1994, she was appointed Music Advisor to the Wuhan Symphony, becoming the first American woman to hold such a post in China. She also conducted the Shanghai Symphony in 1994 and the Central Opera in 2004, the first American woman to do so.

Composing History

As a composer, Bond has focused on operas that bring historical women to life. Her opera Mrs. President, about Victoria Woodhull, premiered in 2012 in Anchorage, Alaska. Clara, about the life of Clara Schumann, premiered in 2019 at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival. Other operas include The Adventures of Gulliver, commissioned by American Opera Project through Opera America's grant to Female Composers in 2016; The Miracle of Light, commissioned by The Young Peoples Chorus of New York City and premiered by Chamber Opera Chicago in 2017; Sirens, commissioned by the Roger Shapiro Fund and premiered by Cygnus in 2017; and Travels, premiered by Opera Roanoke in 1995. She also assisted film composers Paul Glass and Hugo Friedhofer in orchestrating and ghost-writing film scores for Universal Pictures and Metromedia Studios. Bond is the Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival in New York, which she founded in 1998.