Pierre-François Villaret
(1830-1896)

The French tenor Pierre-François Villaret made his debut at Paris Opéra on 21 March 1863 as Arnold Melchtal in a revival of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell.

He remained a first tenor at the Paris Opéra until 1882. Among his more memorable roles were Manrico in Il trovatore, Masaniello in La muette de Portici, Max in Der Freischütz, Fernando in La favorita, Raoul in Les Huguenots, Robert in Robert le diable, Vasco de Gama in L’Africaine, Jean de Lyde in Le prophète, and Gérard in La reine de Chypre.

He left the Paris Opéra in 1882 and made various guest appearances for the rest of the decade. In 1885 he was at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and he sang several times at the Opéra de Monte Carlo. After 1885 he performed mostly character roles, for example Hadji in Delibes’ Lakmé and Normanno in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.