Opera Soprano Danielle de Niese is more than just the most magnetic presence in modern classical music, or the woman described by the New York Times magazine as "opera's coolest soprano." She's also the performer who's shredding the classical rulebook with her unique combination of artistic credibility and exotic 21st century allure.

Not many lyric opera sopranos who have thrilled audiences worldwide from the Metropolitan Opera to Covent Garden have also performed on stage with LL Cool J, or sung in a Ridley Scott movie. Nor have they won an Emmy Award as a TV host at 16. Danielle de Niese, born in Melbourne, Australia to Sri Lankan parents (her father with Dutch roots, her mother part-Scottish), has been on her unstoppable path since the age of eight. She's an irresistible fireball with her own beguiling way of approaching her art. There really isn't anyone quite like her.

Danielle's opera singer career has included countless starring roles, in such productions as The Marriage of Figaro (in which she made her first appearance at the Met as Barbarina at a mere 19), Così fan tutte, Orpheus and Eurydice and Acis and Galatea, L'Elisir d'amore, Don Pasquale. Danielle has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and many others, on the world-famous opera stages of Paris, Naples, Madrid, Zurich, Berlin, San Francisco, Chicago, Tokyo, Sydney, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and far beyond.

She's been a recording star since she made her studio debut with Decca/Universal Records releasing Handel Arias in 2007, most recently her fourth studio album Beauty of the Baroque. As 2013 came to an end, she was captivating a select Mayfair audience with a recital at the Arts Club's classical festival before starring as Poppea in Handel's Agrippina at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. That reunited her with producer David McVicar, in whose award-winnng production of Handel's Giulio Cesare she catapulted to world fame at Glyndebourne in 2005.

Those are some of the specifics, but they only begin to tell Danielle's story. With her effervescent attitude and highly developed self-awareness, she is the opera star to delight the devoted aficionado, and to lure the first-time visitor.