Damien Bigourdan

Damien Bigourdan studied acting at the Paris theatre school Cours Florent and at the Paris Conservatoire. He toured throughout France for five years in Olivier Py’s production of Paul Claudel’s Le Soulier de satin, culminating in performances at the Odéon-Théâtre de L’Europe in 2009. From 2001 he received vocal training, and in 2003 he made his singing debut in Kurt Weill’s Der Silbersee at Paris’s Monfort Théâtre.

Since then, Damien Bigourdan has appeared in roles including Canio (Pagliacci), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana), Luigi (Il tabarro), Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi), the title role of Gounod’s Faust, Paul in Philip Glass’s Les Enfants terribles, the tenor role in Matteo Franceschini’s My Way to Hell, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Gardefeu (La vie Parisienne) and Candide in Philippe Fénelon’s Flaubert et Voltaire.

He has also sung Roger in his own production of Peter Eötvös’s Le Balcon with the ensemble Le Balcon, Theseus in Jonathan Dove’s The Monster in the Maze under the musical direction of Simon Rattle at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2015, Rodomont in Hervé’s Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde and Alfredo (La traviata) at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris.

In 2019 he sang Guillot (Manon) under Marc Minkowski at the Opéra Comique and Monsieur Michu in André Messager’s Les P’tites Michu at the Opéra de Tours. In 2020 he appeared in a double bill of Offenbach’s Lischen et Fritzchen and Frédéric Wach’s Un Mari das la serrure at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris.

Since 2010 Damien Bigourdan has been a member of the ensemble Le Balcon, singing roles including Dancing Master and Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos, and in Arthur Lavandier’s De La Terreur des hommes and Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire.

In 2013 Damien Bigourdan won the first prize at the Stockhausen Courses Kürten for his interpretation of Michael in Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht. He appeared in the same role in 2018 at the Opéra Comique and in 2019 at London’s South Bank Centre.

Together with the Columbian artist Nieto he has been directing Stockhausen’s Licht cycle with the Balcon at the Philharmonie de Paris since 2019.