Marc Laho

Biography

Guest of the National Theatre Opera. Born in Belgium, he studied voice and trumpet at Académie Royale de Beaux Arts in Liege. He attained success at several voice competitions, including the Luciano Pavarotti International Competition in Philadelphia (1992). He made his opera debut in 1989 at Opéra de Monte Carlo in the role of the Officer (Massenet: Thérese). He was subsequently engaged at La Piccola Scala and the theatres in Orlando, Nancy and Rennes. His repertoire includes, for example, the roles of Don Ottavio (Mozart: Don Giovanni), Donizetti’s Ferrando (La Favorita) and Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore), Almaviva (Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia), Don Alvaro (Meyerbeer: L’Africaine), Des Grieux (Massenet: Manon), as well as numerous tenor roles in operettas (Offenbach’s La belle Helene and La Périchole, Lehár’s Die lustige Witwe). He appeared as Gerald (Delibes: Lakmé) opposite Natalie Dessay in Avignon and Nimes, sang Tonio (Donizetti: La fille du régiment) and Laertes (Thomas: Hamlet) in Geneva, portrayed Paris (Offenbach: La belle Helene) in Zurich under the baton of N. Harnoncourt, Elvino (Bellini: La sonnambula) at Paris’s Opéra Comique and in Vienna, Rossini’s Le Comte Ory at the Glyndebourne Festival, in London, Florence and at Opéra Comique. Furthermore, he sung Prince Léopold (Halévy: La Juive) in Tel Aviv, Arturo (Bellini: I Puritani) in Avignon, Liege and Essen, and appeared in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata in Marseille, in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in Toulouse, etc. His most recent successes include performing Berlioz’s Requiem at the Saint-Denis Festival conducted by Sir Colin Davis, portraying the lead role in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann in Geneva, at Teatro Reggio in Turin, and at the National Theatre in Prague in the 2009/10 season. Update: March 2010