A pupil of Robert Manuel at the National Conservatoire of Dramatic Art, the baritone Gérard Theruel completed his musical studies at the Paris Conservatoire, where he took first prizes in chamber music and in singing. He started his operatic career at the Opéra de Lyon, where he sang Claudio in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, Orphée in Milhaud’s Les malheurs d’Orphée, a rôle he repeated in Berlin. He sang the rôle of Pelléas in Peter Brook’s Impressions sur Pelléas, and returned for the re-opening of the Opéra de Lyon, singing Epaphus in Lully’s opera Phaëton and Demetrio in Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 1997 he was awarded the French critics’ prize and has continued his career in the opera house and concert hall, in addition to a successful series of recordings.