Jean-Luc Viala

He studied voice at the opera school of the Paris Opéra with Michel Sénéchal, later also with Daniel Ferro, Hans Hotter and Arrigo Pola. Debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1983, then in Nancy for one season, and from 1984 at the Opéra, singing small parts. He went on to sing main roles throughout the French provinces, and from 1986 to 1988 in Basel. The larger opera theaters of the French provinces were always his artistic home: Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Marseille, St-Étienne, Lyon, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier. But he also sang a lot in Belgium (La Monnaie and particularly in Liège), in Glyndebourne, Dublin, Leipzig, Cologne. In 1995, he stepped in for Luciano Pavarotti at the Met in La fille du régiment, in 1999, he was Léopold in a concert performance of La Juive at Carnegie Hall.

His repertory included Alfredo, Nemorino, Ernesto, Fenton, Italienischer Sänger, Narraboth, Rodolfo, Nadir, Vincent, Belfiore (Il viaggio a Reims) and, somewhat incongruously, Arnold.

Reference: Kutsch & Riemens