Jean-Paul Fouchécourt

French tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt ranks among the foremost interpreters on the early music circuit and has earned particular distinction for his command of haute-contre parts in French Baroque opera. Music entered his life at age ten, when he first concentrated on the saxophone. He went on to work as a professional saxophonist, holding university teaching posts while maintaining an active performance schedule. A short conducting phase followed, during which an encounter with soprano Cathy Berberian persuaded him to pursue singing as his sole vocation. Around the same period he met conductor William Christie, whose mid-1980s efforts to revive French Baroque opera were then gaining notice. Fouchécourt has since appeared regularly with Christie and Les Arts Florissants on both stage and disc. Additional partnerships have linked him to Martin Gester, Herve Niquet, Philippe Herreweghe, Rene Jacobs, Nicholas McGegan, Christophe Rousset, and Marc Minkowski. Under Minkowski he portrayed Hippolyte in a recording of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie that received a Gramophone nomination for Best Early Opera. International engagements have taken him to the Opéra de Paris, the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Théâtre de Lausanne, the Opéra de Lyon, Amsterdam Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. His Metropolitan Opera debut occurred in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, and he participated in Seiji Ozawa’s recording of Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias. International recognition grew further from his assumption of the title role in Rameau’s Platée ou Junon jalouse, a co-production of the Edinburgh Festival and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Among other undertakings he has issued a collection of nineteenth-century French romances. With colleagues Bernard Deletré, Véronique Gens, and Brigitte Vinson he founded the Novalis Vocal Quartet, and he served on the faculty of the Paris Conservatory from 1994 to 1997.