A student of Swiss baritone François Loup, François Le Roux was a member of the Opéra de Lyon troupe from 1980 to 1985. This marked the beginning of an international career that has taken him to the Opéra de Paris, La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London, La Fenice in Venice, and opera houses in Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, Zurich, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Buenos Aires. His repertoire spans from Monteverdi to contemporary opera, and he has premiered works by major contemporary composers such as Harrison Birtwistle, Henri Dutilleux, Hans Werner Henze, Philippe Hersant, Witold Lutosławski, and Toru Takemitsu.
His name is closely associated with Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande, which he first performed in the role of Pelléas (recorded under Claudio Abbado for Deutsche Grammophon) and, since 1997, in the role of Golaud on the world’s leading stages. He sang Golaud for the opera’s centenary performance at the Opéra-Comique on April 30, 2002, and for its staged premiere in Moscow in 2007 at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre.
A recognized ambassador of French mélodie and German Lied in recital and on recordings, he regularly collaborates with pianists such as Jeff Cohen, Olivier Godin, Christian Ivaldi, Graham Johnson, Pascal Rogé, and Roger Vignoles. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Francis Poulenc Academy in Tours, dedicated to the interpretation of French art song, which celebrates its 29th anniversary this year.
His book Le Chant intime, De l’interprétation de la mélodie française (written with Romain Raynaldy), published by Fayard in Paris, received the 2004 René Dumesnil Prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Its English translation was released by Oxford University Press in New York in 2021. His second book, L’opéra français – une question de style (also with Romain Raynaldy), was published by Hermann in Paris in April 2019.
His extensive discography has earned numerous awards. Highlights include the complete Mélodies of Poulenc (ATMA Classique, 2013), Debussy (LIGIA Digital, 2014), and Henri Dutilleux (Passavant Music, awarded the Michel Garcin Prize by the Académie du Disque Lyrique in 2016), a recording dedicated to the songs of André Jolivet (2018), another to French melodramas (2019), and Chansons douces et amères in 2022. He has contributed to the publication of previously unpublished mélodies by Nadia Boulanger and Dutilleux (Alphonse Leduc), and Poulenc (Chester).
He is a professor at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, where he organizes each March the “Printemps de la Mélodie”, a full afternoon at Salle Cortot showcasing young performers and renowned artists. For the past seven years, alongside Dame Felicity Lott, he has co-led the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange, which selects and mentors eight singers and two pianists for concerts at Wigmore Hall in London and Salle Cortot in Paris.
He was nominated at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2014 and 2018 in the “Lyric Artist of the Year” category. In 2024, he made his debut as narrator in L’Histoire du soldat by Stravinsky in Montreal in April under the baton of Nicolas Ellis. He also participated in a tribute to composer Gérard Condé in Paris in June 2024. Pianist Florent Boffard invited him to perform the role of the Sprecher in Schönberg’s rarely heard Ode to Napoleon at the International Festival of La Roque d’Anthéron in August 2024.