Jean-Luc Viala
born 5 September 1957 Paris
In RA format
In RA format
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
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