The French tenor
Cyril Auvity has been central in the generation of younger singers carrying forward the tradition of historical Baroque opera performance begun in Paris by the American-French conductor
William Christie.
Auvity was born in Montluçon in the Auvergne region in 1977 and has been involved with singing for most of his life. His first professional experiences came as a child, with the
Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois, known in English as the
Little Singers of Paris. He attended the University of Lille with a double major, studying physics while taking singing courses at the school's conservatory. After a win at the 1999 Concours International de Chant in Clermont-Ferrand, he was discovered by
Christie, who signed him to appear as Telemachus in a production of
Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria at the Aix-en-Provence Festival the following year. That production toured Europe and the U.S., spreading
Auvity's singing widely. Since then, he has been a fixture in
Christie's opera productions, appearing under
Christie in Campra's Les fêtes venitiennes at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2016. Another
Christie-
Auvity collaboration was Charpentier's opera Les arts florissants, which lent its name to
Christie's opera company;
Auvity has continued to be a presence in that company as
Christie has turned over conducting duties to other directors. In 2016, he sang the role of
Monteverdi's Orfeo for the first time, under
Paul Agnew, and his other collaborators have included
Emmanuelle Haïm,
Hervé Niquet,
Christophe Rousset,
Ottavio Dantone, and
Vincent Dumestre.
Auvity also founded his own group,
L'Yriade, to focus on the French solo cantata repertory and has released two albums with that group, focusing on the Orpheus legend and the works of Giovanni Bononcini. His recording of Charpentier's La déscente d'Orphée aux enfers with the Ensemble Desmarest appeared on the Glossa label in 2018.