Francois Le Roux

François Le Roux is a leading French baritone, considered the finest interpreter of Debussy's role of Pélleas in his time. After studying science and English at university, he switched to vocal studies at the age of nineteen. His main teachers were François Loup, Vera Rozsa, and Elisabeth Grümmer, the latter two at the Opéra Studio of Paris. He won the Barcelona Maria Canals Competition and the international competition of Rio de Janeiro and in 1980 became a member of the Lyon Opera Company, where he remained until 1985. He became a full-time freelance singer in 1985 and immediately started filling numerous invitations to sing at major opera companies and the leading European music festivals. In addition, in 1985 he sang the role of Pélleas for the first time and was proclaimed the "greatest Pélleas since Jacques Jansen." He has sung the role over a hundred times around the world and recorded it on Deutsche Grammophon with Claudio Abbado conducting. In 1998, for the first time, he sang the role of Golaud rather than Pélleas in the opera, at the Paris Opéra-Comique and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Among his notable appearances are as Ramiro in Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Glyndebourne), Marcello in La Bohème (Oslo and Hamburg), Orestes in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride (Frankfurt), Lescaut in Massenet's Manon (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Papageno in The Magic Flute, and Figaro in Rossini's Barber of Seville. His Paris Opéra debut in 1988 was in the role of Valentine in Gounod's Faust. His portrayal of Mozart's Don Giovanni on the same stage brought him the "Prix de Révélation de l'Année of the French Music Critics. He has frequently sung the Don on several other major stages. His operatic repertoire is varied and includes operas from all eras. From the Baroque, he sings, for instance, the title role of Tancrède by Campra, the title role of Monteverdi's Orfeo, and Pollux in Castor and Pollux by Rameau. He sings all the major baritone parts in Mozart operas, Rossini's Figaro, Malatesta, Prinz Ottokar in Der Freischütz, and Marcello. His twentieth-century parts include The Clock and The Cat in Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortiléges, Rivière in Dallapiccola's Vole di Notte, Der Prinz von Homburg by Henze, and Birtwistle's Gawain, David Lang's Modern Painters (as John Ruskin) and Von Bose's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (the last three being world premieres). He is also a renowned recital and concert artist. He has recorded the complete songs of Duparc and Fauré, and won the French Record Academy Award for his Fables of de La Fontaine on EMI. He sings Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, which he has recorded with Charles Dutoit and the Montréal Symphony Orchestra on Decca, and has released sets of songs by Severac (Hyperion), Poulenc (Decca), Roussel (BMG-RCA), and other recordings for Erato, and REM. His frequent accompanists include Irwin Gage, Graham Johnson, and Roger Vignoles. Le Roux is the Artistic Director of the Académie Francis Poulenc in Tours, where every August he teaches a master course in French song interpretation. He has been chosen Musical Personality of the Year 1997 by the French Critics Union, and been awarded the rank of Chevalier of the French National Order of Arts and Letters (1996).