Baritone Lucas Cortoos is a young soloist (MM Laureate) at the Royal Opera House of La Monnaie in Brussels. Next season, he will appear in several productions there, including as Fauteuil & L'arbre in L'Enfant et les Sortilèges by Maurice Ravel with the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alain Altinoglu. At La Monnaie, he previously performed solo roles in The Nose by Shostakovich, in Lulu by Berg and in Gianni Schicchi by Puccini. He returns to Opera Ballet Vlaanderen for a role debut as Zweiter Gralsritter in Parsifal by Wagner, and to Zomeropera Alden-Biesen as Schaunard in La Bohème by Puccini. Recently, he has made his solo debut as Marchese d’Obigny in La Traviata at Zomeropera Alden Biesen, at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Die sieben Todsünden by Kurt Weill and at the Bregenzer Festspiele as Le Bailli in Werther by Massenet. He sang as a soloist with a.o. the Wiener Symphoniker, the Symphony Orchestra of La Monnaie, the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra,… Besides his international opera career, he is committed to giving children their first opera experience. He sang the role of Mr Hoppy in Un amour de tortue with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the grasshopper in A song for the moon with La Monnaie and he is touring through Belgium with Opera Caramba in the productions Carmen, The Magic Flute and La Traviata. He finished his Master of classical singing with the highest distinction at the Conservatoire of Antwerp, where he studied with Gary Jankowski and Lucienne Van Deyck. He continues his vocal development with mezzo Angélique Noldus. He is a laureate of the 31st Internationaler  Gesangs-wettbewerb Kammeroper schloss Rheinsberg 2022 and he has won the public prize and special prize ‘Inga Kalna’ for promising talent at the Alida Vane Competition 2018 in Latvia.  Together with Tom Van Bogaert he is the founder of Opera Present, a new opera company that organizes masterclasses and gives performance opportunities to young Belgian singers. More information at www.operapresent.be