The busy 2024–25 season of French bass Nathanaël Tavernier opened with his UK debut as Sparafucile (Rigoletto) at Welsh National Opera and the Commendatore (Don Giovanni) at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris with ARCAL (followed by many revivals across France in the coming seasons). It continued with Nourabad (Les Pêcheurs de perles) at the Opéra de Dijon, Sarastro (The Magic Flute) at the opera houses of Rennes, Nantes and Angers, and his return to the Kraków Opera Festival and Rossini in Wildbad in Germany as Fra Antonio in Joseph Poniatowski’s rare Pierre de Médicis and Elmiro in Rossini’s Otello. Current and future projects include a new Sarastro for TOBS in Switzerland, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris under Maxim Emelyanychev, Caronte in Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Schwetzingen Palace for the Nationaltheater Mannheim, and Schubert’s Winterreise in Switzerland. He recently sang François Tortebat in Penderecki’s Die schwarze Maske with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) under Marin Alsop and Adamas in Rameau’s Les Boréades in Oldenburg, revived Emireno (Ottone) in Karlsruhe and, most recently, sang the Governor in Le Comte Ory and Ruffino in Michele Carafa’s Masaniello, both at Rossini in Wildbad and at the Kraków Opera Festival. From 2020 to 2023 he was also a member of the permanent ensemble of the Karlsruhe opera house, where his roles included the Commendatore (Don Giovanni), Zuniga (Carmen), the King (Aida), Basilio (The Barber of Seville), the First Soldier (Salome), the First Apprentice (Wozzeck) and Sarastro (The Magic Flute). Other notable stage roles include Osmin (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Balthazar (La Favorite), the Cold Genius (King Arthur), Simone (Gianni Schicchi) and Frère Laurent (Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette). He has worked with directors Robert Carsen, Pierre Audi, Adele Thomas and Olivier Py, and with conductors such as Gabriel Garrido, Hervé Niquet, Marko Letonja, Julien Chauvin and Pierre Dumoussaud.

Nathanaël Tavernier discovered music at the Maîtrise de la Loire, founded by Jacques Berthelon. After a specialised bachelor’s degree in ethnomusicology at the University of Lyon, he earned his Master’s at the Haute École de Musique de Genève with Gilles Cachemaille, before joining the Opéra Studio of the Opéra national du Rhin and attending masterclasses with Helmut Deutsch, Alain Garichot and Sylvie Valayre.