Born in Paris, Lefort was a pupil of the
Institution Notre-Dame de Sainte-Croix and then sang in the college choir of the Schola (the
Petits chanteurs de Sainte-Croix de Neuilly). He then began a career as a baritone, mainly in French
mélodies (
Germaine Tailleferre composed for him her '''', for baritone and orchestra in 1956), but also in operetta and opera (he performed in the mid-1950s au
Théâtre du Châtelet and at the
Paris Opera). He stopped singing for health reasons in the late 1950s. He then became Artistic Director of the Lausanne Festival, then directed the
Opéra de Marseille from 1965 to 1968. He will then lead the , le Festival de Royaumont, then the Paris Opera, and finally the
Aix-en-Provence Festival from 1974 to 1982 (where he succeeded
Gabriel Dussurget). == References ==