Grandson and son of opera singers, Bordeaux-born tenor Julien Dran started his musical training very young. He studied piano and horn, then singing at the Bordeaux Conservatoire with Malcolm Walker, Pierre Catala and Lionel Sarrazin, before joining the CNIPAL in Marseille for the 2007/2008 season – the city where he made his stage debut.

He has won several competitions, including the Clermont-Ferrand International Singing Competition in 2009 and the Julián Gayarre Singing Competition in Pamplona in 2011, and received a Paris Opera Award in 2012.

He was soon performing on many French and European stages: Ferrando (Così fan tutte) at Clermont Auvergne Opéra and the Opéra de Massy, Fenton (Falstaff) at the Opéra de Metz, Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at the Opéra de Corte, Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, Edmondo (Manon Lescaut), Ruodi (Guillaume Tell), Bénédict (Béatrice et Bénédict) and Antinoüs (Pénélope) at La Monnaie, the title role in Fra Diavolo at the Opéra de Limoges, Matteo Borsa (Rigoletto) at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Lindoro (L’italiana in Algeri), Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles), Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor) and Kudrjáš (Káťa Kabanová) at the Opéra d’Avignon, Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) at Clermont Auvergne Opéra and the Opéra de Massy, Gastone (La traviata), Matteo Borsa (Rigoletto) and the Count of Lerma (Don Carlos) at the Opéra de Paris, Alfred (Die Fledermaus) and Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) at the Opéra de Marseille, Alfredo (La traviata) with Opéra Éclaté, the Young Horace (Salieri’s Les Horaces) in Versailles and at the Theater an der Wien with Les Siècles, Gérald (Lakmé) at the Opéra de Tours, and Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles) in Limoges and Reims. He also created the role of Tibère in Dominique Gesseney-Rappo’s Carlotta ou la Vaticane in Fribourg.

More recently he has appeared in Robert le Diable (Raimbaut) at La Monnaie; La Belle Hélène (Pâris) and Orphée aux enfers (Aristée/Pluton) at the Opéra de Lausanne; La Fille du régiment (Tonio) at the Folies d’Ô, the Opéra d’Avignon and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo; Le Soulier de satin (the Viceroy of Naples, Saint Boniface, Don Ramire) at the Opéra national de Paris; Mireille (Vincent) at the Opéra de Metz; L’elisir d’amore (Nemorino) and Lucie de Lammermoor (Edgar) at Opéra de Québec; La traviata (Alfredo) at the Capitole de Toulouse; Faust (title role) and La Dame blanche (Georges Brown) at the Opéra de Limoges; Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Belmonte), Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra (Leicester) and La traviata (Alfredo) at the Opéra de Marseille; Halévy’s L’Éclair (George) at the Grand Théâtre de Genève; Die Fledermaus (Alfred) and Faust (title role) at the Opéra de Lille; Guillaume Tell (Arnold) at the Opéra de Lausanne; Les Pêcheurs de perles (Nadir) at the Opéra de Dijon; and Faust (title role) at the Opéra-Comique...

Upcoming projects include Dialogues des Carmélites (Chevalier de la Force) at the Semperoper Dresden, Otello (Cassio) at the Théâtre national du Capitole de Toulouse, La bohème (Rodolfo) at Opéra de Québec, La Damnation de Faust (Faust) with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Faust (title role) at La Scala, Milan.