Béatrice Uria-Monzon

Béatrice Uria-Monzon spent her formative years in her native town of Agen south west of France. With her Baccalauréat safely under her belt but not yet sure about her future course of study, she decided to give herself time to reflect and enrolled for a further final year at the Saint-Jean Lycée in Lectoure.. The music-loving director of the Lycée, P. Gardeil and one of the teachers, R. Fornerod, who directed a choir there, introduced her to singing in which she clearly excelled …

Motivated by a love of Art, acquired from her father, she then studied in Art History while attending at the same time the Bordeaux Conservatoire, followed in 1984 by the Centre National d’Artistes Lyriques (CNIPAL) in Marseille. She took further advanced musical training at the l’École d’Art Lyrique from the Paris National Opera and rapidly made her debuts in the major French opera houses : Lyon, Toulouse, Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux Nancy, Marseille in a varied repertoire.
1993 marked a turning point in her career with her debut in the role of Carmen in J-L Gomez’s new production at the Bastille Opera, where her interpretation distanced her straight away from the standard usually performances associated with the character. She then revived the role on both national and international stages: the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Miami Opera, the Teatro Regio in Turin, Arènes in Verona, the Orange Summer Festival, the Vienna Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Houston Grand Opera, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Liceu de Barcelone, la Fenice, Palermo….
She then enlarged her French repertoire with her first Dalila in Zurick, then Béatrice in Béatrice and Bénédicte in Bordeaux, Nancy, Tours, Giulietta in les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Chorégies d’Orange summer festival, La Scala de Milan, and the Paris National.
Her French repertoire also encompasses the Massenet heroines : Hérodiate whom she interpreted on the stages of Avignon and Saint-Etienne, Dulcinée (Don Quichote) at the Paris national opera, Charlotte (Werther) in Lyon and the Opera Comique de Paris.
The other roles tackled in the French Opera include the queen Gertrude in Hamlet (Thomas) at the Liceu de Barcelone, Julie in Fiesque (Lalo) at the Montpellier Festival, the Grande – Duchesse de Gérolstein from Offenbach at the Opéra de Lausanne, Didon in The Trojans at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasburg and Deutche Oper in Berlin, Chimène in “Le Cid” from Massenet and soon Cléôpatre from Massenet and Cassandre in Marseille and Barcelona in June 2013 and 2014.
Béatrice quickly tackled the Italian repertoire, having played Leonora in La Favorita and Eboli in Don Carlo at the Gran Opera in Houston, at the Staatsoper in Berlin, in Vienna in the French version.
Amnéris in Aida, Adalgisa à L’Opéra Garnier in Monte Carlo then in Lausanne, Sarah in Roberto Deveureux from Donizetti, Santuzza at the French Summer Festival in Orange, Marseille, Zurick and her recent first Tosca last June in Avignon she will be reviving at the Paris National Opera and Deutsch Oper in Berlin in 2014.
She has also addressed the German repertoire first with Orlowsky from Johan Strauss at the Paris National Opera and Venus in Tannhaüser she gave four times at the Paris National Opera, at the “ Teatro dell Opera di Roma”, at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and Opéra National du Rhin in Strasburg.
One should also add Judith in the Beard Blue Castle from Bartok at the Paris National Opera.
During her career she has worked with conductors such as S. Osawa, K. Nagano, A. Jordan, G. Prêtre, M. Plasson, A. Lombard, M-W. Chung, J-C Casadesus, G. Bertini, J. Conlon, L. Slatkin, N. Santi, M. Janowski, A. Lombard.…B. De Billy…
Amongst the list of directors appear R. Carsen, H. Kupfer, J-L Gomez, E. Sagi, L.Ronconi, G. Deflo, La Fura dels Baus, P. Caurier et M. Leiser, K. Warnert, P.Konwitschny…C.Bieito…N. Dufflot, J.C.Auvray…C.Roubeau.
Béatrice Uria-Monzon can often be found performing in concerts with Orchestra. Her credits include “Les Nuits d’Eté” and l’Amour de Cléopâtre from Berlioz. Shéhérazade from Ravel, “Le Poème de l’Amour et de la Mer” from Chausson, the Wesendonk lieder from Wagner …
With piano, Ravel, Duparc and Fauré, the Spanish repertoire of Granados, De Falla, Montsalvatge and Monpou and in Oratorio : the Requiems of Verdi, Fauré and the Stabat Maters of Rossini and Pergolesi…