Born in Genoa, Italy, Dessì completed her studies at the Conservatory of Parma and the Accademia Chigiana of Siena. After making her operatic debut in 1979 with Savona's Teatro dell'Opera Giacosa in the comic opera La serva padrona by Pergolesi, she distinguished herself the following year as a finalist at the International Competition organized by Italy's RAI TV. Her international career took her to a variety of opera theatres, singing under the direction of conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, and the Metropolitan Opera's James Levine.
Dessì's 2008–2009 season began with Tosca in Florence, where she performed an encore of "Vissi d'arte", the first encore at Teatro Comunale di Firenze since Renata Tebaldi's "Amami Alfredo" in 1956. She later performed at the Verdi Theatre in Trieste, and also performed Adriana Lecouvreur in Palermo, Puccini's La fanciulla del West in Seville, Manon Lescaut in Warsaw, Madama Butterfly in Hanover, and Aida in Verona and Cagliari. She closed the season in Barcelona with Turandot. In January 2009, she opened the season of recital at La Scala.
Dessì died of colon cancer at Poliambulanza Hospital in Brescia on 20 August 2016, at age 59.
Repertoire
Giuseppe Verdi
Ernani, Elvira
Luisa Miller, Luisa
Rigoletto, Gilda
Il trovatore, Leonora
La traviata, Violetta
Les vêpres siciliennes, Elena
Simon Boccanegra, Amelia
Un ballo in maschera, Amelia
La forza del destino, Leonora
Don Carlos, Elisabetta
Aida, Aida
Otello, Desdemona
Falstaff, Alice
Giacomo Puccini
Manon Lescaut, Manon
La bohème, Mimì
Tosca, Tosca
Madama Butterfly, Cio-Cio-San
La fanciulla del West, Minnie
Il tabarro, Giorgetta
Suor Angelica, Angelica
Gianni Schicchi, Lauretta
Turandot, Liù
Vincenzo Bellini
Norma, Norma
Gaetano Donizetti
Maria Stuarda, Maria
Lucrezia Borgia, Lucrezia
Alina, regina di Golconda, Alina
Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali, Corilla
Gioachino Rossini
Ciro in Babilonia, Amira
Il signor Bruschino, Sofia
La pietra del paragone, Fulvia
Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, Matilde
Mosè in Egitto, Amaltea
Guglielmo Tell, Matilde
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Le nozze di Figaro, Contessa
Così fan tutte, Fiordiligi
Don Giovanni, Donna Elvira
Pietro Mascagni
Iris, Iris
Umberto Giordano
Andrea Chénier, Maddalena
Fedora, Fedora
Francesco Cilea
Adriana Lecouvreur, Adriana
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Pagliacci, Nedda
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Iphigénie en Tauride, Iphigénie
Claudio Monteverdi
L'incoronazione di Poppea, Poppea
Georg Friedrich Händel
Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Sesto Pompeo
Arrigo Boito
Mefistofele, Margherita
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
La serva padrona, Serpina
Adriano in Siria, Sabina
Flaminio, Flaminio
Domenico Cimarosa
Gli Orazi e i Curiazi, Curiazio
Le astuzie femminili, Bellina
Antonio Vivaldi
Farnace, Selinda
Discography
La Traviata. Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Parma, John Neschling, conductor. SoloVoce
Puccini Arias. Orchestra dell'Arena di Verona, Marco Boemi, conductor. Decca
Daniela Dessì sings Verdi. Orchestra della Fondazione Toscanini, Steven Mercurio, conductor. Decca
Umberto Giordano, Andrea Chénier. Armiliato, Guelfi, Rinaldi; Orchestra Sinfonica Verdi Milano, Vjekoslav Šutej, conductor. Universal
