Théo Imart: “I Don’t Want to Be Limited to the Baroque Repertoire”

Having trained at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, countertenor Théo Imart now graces some of Europe’s most prestigious stages, from the Aix-en-Provence Festival to the Gstaad Festival, performing alongside renowned ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants and the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles.

You started singing at the age of nine in the Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône. What do you take away from that experience as a child?

Théo Imart: It threw me straight into the deep end. No one in my family was involved in music, so it was only through the sheer joy I found on stage that I realized this was what I wanted to do with my life. I was quite a mischievous child, always drawn to performance, cinema, and theatre. As a kid, you have this sense of naivety, a kind of carefree attitude, because you don’t really grasp how lucky you are. My first opera chorus experience was at the Chorégies d’Orange with Roberto Alagna, and soon after, I had the incredible opportunity to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Kurt Masur and Carmina Burana with Michel Plasson.

The countertenor voice is often associated with Baroque music. Was it a natural choice for you, given your vocal range, to specialize in 16th- to 18th-century repertoire?

T. I.: Thankfully, yes! The Baroque repertoire is full of stunning operas. Many roles originally written for castrati are still often performed by mezzo-sopranos today. But I never wanted to limit myself strictly to Baroque music. When I arrived in Paris, I studied with Mireille Alcantara at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. She trained me like a mezzo-soprano rather than confining me to the countertenor voice, allowing me to explore lieder, French mélodies, and opéra-comique. Seeing countertenors thriving across different repertoires makes their presence in Baroque opera feel even more natural.

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