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VINCENT FIGURI
Thanks to his dual training as musician and actor, Vincent Figuri has been established for
some years as the incontrovertible specialist in the role of recitation, particularly in melodramatic
parts when such productions are brought back into favour and where « his voice makes one listen
to the music ».
Vincent Figuri studied piano and chamber music at the Conservatoire National de Région
de Grenoble, where he won first prize, while taking in parallel a theatre course at the Florent
private school and at Berkeley University in California.
He crowned his achievement with higher degrees in musicology and literature at the
Sorbonne and it is that has given each interpretation that spirit informed by research so much
praised by the critics.
After varied appearances on the French theatrical stage (The prince in The New Menoza
by Lenz, the madman in Gogol’s Diary of a madman, Aperghis…) his comedian’s temperament
and his training of professional musician leads him to cast a new light on works where music and
theatre are joined.
He totally renews the approach of classics like Stravinsky’s Soldier’s tale, Prokofiev’s
Peter and the Wolf or The Story of Babar by Poulenc which he “transforms in glittering one-manshow where he recites, sings, plays and dances”.
He so reveals forgotten masterpieces by Mozart, Liszt, Sibelius, Schumann, Martinu,
Prokofiev, Reynaldo Hahn, Ibert, Bruneau, Fibich, Ostrcil and many other composers on texts by
Musset, Daudet, Goethe, Byron… which he discovers in European libraries and bring back into
light after a musicologist, translation and rewriting work where his voice is the one of a comedian
and a musician.
Vincent Figuri is the only actor who has played in their entirety Sibelius’ melodramas he
created in Prades Casals’ festival and those by Liszt he performed with Michel Dalberto.
He can bring more than 15 French creations and 9 world creations to his credit. He also
arouses commands with composers like Noël Lee or Krystof Maratka who wrote melodramas for
him.
He has been engaged in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Prague’s International Festival,
Presences Radio France, Pablo Casals Prades, Auvers-sur-Oise, Consonances in Saint-Nazaire,
Art sacré in Antibes, Cannes-Mandelieu, Amadeus in Geneva or on France-Musique where
broadcasts have been dedicated to him.
His collaborations with Marek Janowski, Jiri Belohlavek, Mickaël Rudy, Calliopée and
Carpe Diem ensembles, Arto Noras, Noël Lee, Isabelle Moretti, Michel Dalberto, Pascal Amoyel
or the Ysaÿe Quartet has been greeted by criticism who’s seeing in him “an artist of highest
value”
Tireless discoverer, Vincent Figuri has been a producer on France-Musique where his
radio broadcasts (Un Eté à la campagne, Mémoire retrouvée, A Pied d’œuvre), received an
excellent welcome in the national press.
Poet, he also published a collection of poetries named L’Offrande poétique. As a teacher,
he’s regularly asked to present young public concerts with the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre
National d’Île de France and the Orchestre National de France.
Recently, he founded his own recording label, Salamandre, to promote original repertoire.
In Autumn 2012, he came out with a world premier of Prokofiev’s musical tale, the Winter
Bonfire, with the Saison Russe Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrei Tchistiakov.