A rising lyric soprano, Tamara Bounazou returns to Opéra-Comique where she sang the title role of Iphigénie en Tauride in 2025 in Wajdi Mouawad's staging. An intergenerational encounter that celebrates transmission between young French-speaking artists.
Cast
Tamara Bounazou, with the artists of the Academy of Opéra-Comique • Mathieu Pordoy, director of musical studies
Detailed cast of the 2026-2027 Academy class to come
Tamara Bounazou © Marine Cessat-Bégler
Program
Diction, stage imagination, vocal commitment: this masterclass offers a close dialogue between a lyric revelation of her generation and the artists of the Academy of Opéra-Comique.
Detailed program to come
Biography
A French-Algerian lyric soprano, Tamara Bounazou began singing at the age of five at the Conservatoire of Montbéliard, her hometown. A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, then of the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna in 2019, she was selected the same year for the Young Singers' Project of the Salzburg Festival, where she sang the First Attendant of Dircé in Cherubini's Médée conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock in Simon Stone's staging.
At the Opéra national de Paris, she has performed Papagena in Die Zauberflöte as well as L'Amour and Clarine in Rameau's Platée conducted by Marc Minkowski and staged by Laurent Pelly. At the Schloßtheater Schönbrunn, she has been Gretel in Hänsel and Gretel, Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro and Carolina in Il matrimonio segreto. In 2025, she took on the title role of Iphigénie en Tauride on the Opéra-Comique stage, in Wajdi Mouawad's staging.
In 2026 she was nominated in the "Révélation artiste lyrique" category at the Victoires de la musique classique. The winner of numerous competitions — including Second Prize at the 2025 Lotte Lenya Competition and First Prize at the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition with her pianist Anna Giorgi (duo Moine ou Voyou) — she performs regularly at Wigmore Hall in London, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Verbier Festival.
The Academy of Opéra-Comique
A major player in lyric creation for more than three centuries, in 2023 Opéra-Comique opened an Academy dedicated to new generations of performers.
Its mission is to promote the opéra-comique genre and its specific art of interpretation, performed as close as possible to the texts and to stage action. It aspires to be a centre of artistic excellence around French singing and the art of spoken-sung performance. The Academy also aims to identify and support young French-speaking artists by encouraging them to develop fresh perspectives on lyric art and its vitality.
The disciplines of dramaturgy and costume design are also called to join this project.
