Florent Mbia Baritone

Season 23/24 Artist – Chorus of the Opera

In 2002, Florent Mbia entered the voice class of Françoise Petro at the National Musical School in Montreuil. He was awarded First Prize with top honours from the jury in June 2008 and graduated in Chambre Music. He followed many training courses and masterclasses presented by artists José Cura and Thomas Moser. 

In 2008, he was a finalist in the Strasbourg International Singing Competition and won the E. J. Marshall Prize (Best Baritone) at the Paris International Singing Competition (UFAM), with the "Honneur'' grade.

In 2009, he won the First Prize at the European Lyric Forum in Arles, the First Prize at the International Singing Competition in Clermont-Ferrand and joined the Paris Opera Chorus. He then became a resident artist at the Centre lyrique Clermont-Auvergne during the 2010/11 season. There, he sang Norton (La cambiale di matrimonio) and the bass role of Rossini’s Little solemn Mass. 

His repertoire includes the Second Apprentice (Wozzeck), Montano (Otello), Orpheus (Orphée et Eurydice), the Teacher (Der Jasager by Kurt Weill /The No-Sayer, a creation by Jean Roudon), Papageno (The Magic Flute), Big Bill Bug (L’Enfant aux cheveux bleus, a creation by Michel Zbar), the Notary (Don Pasquale), Don Giovanni and Don Alfonso in Mozart se déguise staged by Stephen Taylor. At the Paris Opera, he performed the Count de Ceprano and a Court Usher (Rigoletto), a Jailer (Tosca), Dvornik (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), a customs Sergeant (La Bohème). In 2021, he sang Laurence (Le Magnifique) in Reims. 

As soloist, he performed various concerts, oratorios and masses such as Duruflé and Fauré’s Requiem, the 4th movement of Beethoven’s Symphony n°9, Haendel’s Messiah, Carmina Burina, with conductors such as José Cura, Olivier Holt, Dominique Sourisse, Claude Schnitzler and Michel Pelletier.