François Piolino

After finishing his vocal studies at the Conservatoire de Lausanne and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, François Piolino, Swiss tenor born in Basel, achieved first prize at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. His long-time vocal teacher is Parisian tenor Guy Flechter.

Starting with baroque music, predominantly with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, his career lead naturally to the opera, specializing in character roles, he toured in France and Europe, performing on the most prominent stages: Opéra Bastille, Opéra Garnier, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Opéra de Lyon, Opéra national de Lorraine, Opéra national du Rhin, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Staatsoper Berlin, Amsterdam, Glyndebourne, théâtre royal de la Monnaie, Royal Opera House Covent Garden…

He worked with numerous stage directors such as Robert Carsen, Graham Vick, Laurent Pelly, Olivier Py, Jean-François Sivadier, Mariame Clement, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, Bob Wilson, Jean-Louis Martinotti, Frencesca Zambello, Günter Krämer, Christoph Marthaler… and sang under the direction of Michel Plasson, Ivan Fischer, Pinchas Steinberg, Bernhard Kontarsky, Lawrence Foster, Jérémie Rhorer, Charles Dutoit, Jeffrey Tate, Kazushi Ono, Philippe Jordan, and Esa-Pekka Salonen among others.

Some of the roles he has taken on include: Don Basilio (Le Nozze di Figaro), Goro (Madama Butterfly), Caius (Falstaff), Pang (Turandot), or Monsieur Triquet (Eugene Onegin), not forgetting Billy Budd's Novice.

Thanks to his perfect mastery of German, François Piolino is very comfortable with roles such as: Jews (Salome), M.Taupe (Capriccio), Scaramuccio (Ariadne auf Naxos), Valzacchi (Der Rosenkavalier) or Monostatos (Die Zauberflöte), one of his favorite roles, that he's sung over 80 times, all over the world from France to Japan.

French repertoire allows him to express himself in his first language: Remendado (Carmen), Guillot de Morfontaine (Manon), Schmidt (Werther), the Four Servants from Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Torquemada (L’Heure espagnole) or L'Aumônier from Dialogues des Carmélites; but he is particularly fond of the three tenor roles of L'Enfant et les sortilèges (La Théière, L'Arithmétique and La Rainette) that he sings on the most prestigious stages and under the baton of the greatest conductors.

Recently he sang Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées and in Nantes, Salome, Carmen, The Merry Widow, L’Enfant et les sortilèges, Die Zauberflöte, Trompe la Mort by Luca Francesconi and Don Carlos at the Paris Opera, L’Enfant et les sortilèges in Lyon, Rome, Glyndebourne, London, Stockholm, at the Philharmonie de Paris and at the Auditorium of Radio France in Paris, in Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, Lausanne, Geneva and Monte Carlo, L’Heure espagnole with the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, Eugene Onegin, Ariadne auf Naxos and Le Nozze di Figaro in Glyndebourne and in Lausanne, Dialogues des Carmélites at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, at the Opernhaus Zürich and at the Opéra de Quebec, Maître Peronilla at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Capriccio in Lyon and Brussels, L’Etoile (Tapioca) in Amsterdam and for his debuts at Covent Garden, Madama Butterfly in Glyndebourne, Lille, Reims and Luxemburg, Chérubin by Massenet in Montpellier, Carmen and Falstaff in Montpellier, Werther and Carmen at Covent Garden, Geneviève de Brabant and Eugene Onegin in Nancy, La Traviata at the Opéra national du Capitole in Toulouse, Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Brussels, at La Scala in Milan, at the Staatsoper Haburg, at La Fenice in Venice and at the Opéra de Lyon, Maître Péronilla by Offenbach and Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Eugene Onegin  in Rouen, Fervaal at the Festival de Radio-France, Berlioz’s Te Deum with the Orquestra Sinfonica y Coro RTVE, La Chauve-souris in Avignon, Rennes, Nantes, Angers, Les Mamelles de Tirésias and Carmen in Glyndebourne, Les Enfants terribles with La CoOpérative, Carmen in Macau...

Among his projects this season: Barkouf by Offenbach with Opera Rara, Die lustige Witwe at the Opéra-théâtre de Metz, Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino…

September 2026

^{This biography should not be edited without permission from Intermezzo.}