Une biographie...

  A confirmed musician, Jean-Francis Monvoisin obtained his secondary-school teaching diploma (CAPES) in music, then a first prize as a singer and a first chamber music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. He owes his first commitment to Manuel Rosenthal for the Poem of Love and the Sea by Ernest Chausson, performed on air at Radio France. His debut on stage were at the Opéra de Lyon, notably with a role that marked his career: Hoffmann, under the direction of Kent Nagano (1994).

  He started to perform internationally in 1998, making his debut in Italy under the direction of Richard Bonynge in the Puritans alongside Luciana Sera, with the Scottish National Opera in Norma (Pollione), under the direction of Richard Armstrong, as well as with the Edimburgh Festival for Giovanna d'Arco by Verdi (1999). His American debut were with the Cleveland Opera in Romeo and Juliet by Gounod, in Quebec with the Opéra de Montréal where he sang Puccini's La Bohème (2000) and with the Opera de Lima for Puccini's Tosca and Carmen by Bizet (2001), as well as a role at the Opera-Bastille for Salambò by Fénelon.

  As his voice and singing matured, he started addressing a wider repertoire: The Damnation of Faust at the Opera House in Bremen (directed by Gunther Neuhold), Die Ägyptische Helena by R. Strauss in Cagliari (2001), he was Canio in Paillasse by Leoncavallo and Turridu by Cavalleria Rusticana at the Hawaii Opera,Radamés of Aida in Lubeck, Carmen under the direction of Maestro Carella. He met great success at the Opéra de Marseille in Bacchus by Ariadne auf Naxos (2002), a role he regularly takes up both in France and abroad.

  In 2003, he made his debut on two large stages: the Monnaie de Bruxelles alongside José van Dam in Oedipus on the road of Bartholomé (world premiere) and the Grand Theater of Geneva where he sang, at short notice, the Faust of the Damnation of Faust in a staging by Olivier Py.
Since then, he has performed on many stages abroad - in Italy (Rome Opera, Lecce, Lucca, Bolzano, Santa Cecilia Academy (under the direction of Antonio Pappano), Belgium and the Netherlands where he has toured with Mrs. Butterfly (Pinkerton), Cape Town, Switzerland, Freiburg and the Verbier Festival and in Germany where in 2008 he sang Meyerbeer's The African Woman and Damnation de Faust at the Nuremberg Opera, he was Benvenuto Cellini in Benvenuto Cellini, by Berlioz, in a magnificent production by Laura Scozzi which earned him a great recognition from the public and critical success. He then performed as Don Sebastian in Don Sebastian, the King of Portugal by Donizetti- as well as in France, including the Grand Theater of Limoges, Saint Denis de la Reunion, the Opera of Metz and the Grand Theater of Tours where he was noticed in Ropartz’s Le Pays (he sang Tual, one of the three roles), which won the Critics Prize 2008.

  He is regularly heard in the roles of Faust, Don José, Hoffmann, Radamés, Florestan, Bacchus ....

  Recently, he has had great success in The Tales of Hoffmann at the Beijing Opera in a new production by Francesca Zambello and as Peter Quint/Prologue in Turn of the Screw by Britten at the Opéra de Tours in the production of Dominique Pitoiset.

  He also regularly performs at concerts, invited to Montreal by the OSM and Newark by the NJSO in Carmina Burana, under the direction of Jacques Lacombe, in Quito with the ONSE in Beethoven's Symphony No.9 under the direction of Nathalie Marin, during tours in Switzerland, in Geneva, Lausanne, Neufchâtel for Verdi's Requiem, in Madrid with ORTVE for Faust-Symphonie by Liszt under the direction of Carlo Rizzi.
In July 2016, he sang Carmina Burana under the direction of Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the opening of the Tanglewood Festival.

Madame Butterfly