Didier Henry is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

 before joining the Opéra National de Lyon

Opéra National de Lyon

Opéra National de Lyon is an opera company in Lyon, France which performs in the Nouvel Opéra, a modernized version in 1993 of the original 1831 opera house.The inaugural performance of François-Adrien Boïeldieu's La Dame blanche was given on 1 July 1831...

. He is well-known for his French opera

French Opera

French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen...

 roles, including those by Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

, Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

, Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

, and Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

. He also starred in a notable recording of Prokofiev's

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

 The Love for Three Oranges in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, under conductor Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano

__FORCETOC__Kent George Nagano is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.-Biography:...

. The baritone is regularly invited on international stages, as often for lyrical productions than for concerts or recitals.

His career was marked by Pelléas's part. He has been in charge of the opera’s creation in Moscow in 1987 with the management of Manuel Rosenthal (recording for Dacca with Charles Dutoit, awarded Grammy Awards and Preis Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik in Germany). He performs the role in France, as well as abroad (Buenos-Aires with Frederica von Stade and Armin Jordan, Tokyo, and United States).

His directory also includes "Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride" (Scala de Milan), Eugène Onéguine, the "Comte des Noces di Figaro" (or "Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte"), Marcello in La Bohême, Manon Lescaut from Massenet, Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas, Posa by Don Carlos, and Einsenstein (Gaillardin) in Die Fledermaus. He has also has songs conducted by Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...

, Myung Wung Chung, and Michel Plasson

Michel Plasson

Michel Plasson is a French conductor.Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. He studied briefly in the United States, including time with Charles Münch...

.

Henry is also a melody writer and stage director ("Monsieur Beaucaire" by André Messager

André Messager

André Charles Prosper Messager , was a French composer, organist, pianist, conductor and administrator. His stage compositions included ballets and 30 opéra comiques and operettas, among which Véronique, had lasting success, with Les p'tites Michu and Monsieur Beaucaire also enjoying international...

at the Metz Opera, "Sophie Arnoult" by Gabriel Pierné, and "Le Portrait de Manon" by Massenet and Pelléas). He has also taught French melody with pianist Anne Le Bozec since October 2006 at the Hochschule de Karlsruhe. In addition, he is Maguelone’s record label manager.

Sources

• Cummings, David (ed.), "Henry, Didier", International Who's Who in Classical Music, Routledge, 2003, p. 336. ISBN 185743174X