Soprano Julie Fuchs is one of the leading figures in the operatic repertory known as lyrique-léger (or light lyric). She has also sung German and Italian opera and has premiered new operatic works, as well as giving song recitals with pianist Alphonse Cemin.

Fuchs was born in Meaux, France, near Paris, on July 24, 1984, but grew up in Avignon. Her father was a business manager and her mother a swimming teacher. Fuchs' first instrument was the violin, which she began studying at age seven. Soon she entered the Avignon Conservatory and studied music history, theory, and eventually voice. She sang mostly pop and jazz at first (retaining an interest in those genres even after her operatic career began), but it was an encounter with a singer on the border between pop and classical that pushed her toward the latter: chosen for the Voices of Europe children's choir, she performed Arvo Pärt's Which was the son of with Icelandic vocalist Björk. Soon Fuchs was committed to exploring singing more deeply; she took private voice and acting lessons and enrolled in 2006 at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur in Paris. As an undergraduate, she was already appearing in operas by Mozart and André Messager, and soon after graduating, she had the lead role in Lully's Acis et Galatée at the Festival Aix-en-Provence. Fuchs won the first of several French government awards for Best Opera Newcomer in 2012, and the following year, she was given a company spot at the Zurich Opera.

This led to more major roles, including Marcelline in Beethoven's Fidelio, the Comtesse de Folleville in Rossini's comic Il viaggio a Reims, and Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. In 2015, Fuchs sang at France's Bastille Day celebration and performed Mozart's Mass in C minor, K. 427, at the Salzburg Festival, as well as reprising the Comtesse de Folleville role at the Paris Opera. After appearing on albums on the Aparte and ATMA Classique labels, Fuchs was signed to Deutsche Grammophon in 2015 and released the album Yes!, featuring French songs of the 1930s as well as light opera and musical theater selections. Meanwhile, Fuchs' stage career was flourishing. In 2016, she appeared as Musetta in Puccini's La bohème at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and the following year she returned to the Paris Opera in the premiere of Trompe-la-mort, by Lucas Francesconi. The year 2018 saw Fuchs take roles as the Countess Adèle in Rossini's Le comte Ory at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and as Poppea in a new Zurich Opera production of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. That year, Fuchs also appeared on a new recording of Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles ("The Pearl Fishers") with the Orchestre Nationale de Lille. The following year was marred, though, when she was dismissed, to considerable controversy, from a production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Hamburg Staatsoper in Germany because she had become pregnant. Fuchs returned to the Opernhaus Zürich in 2020 in a production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, and the following year, she made her Paris Opera debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte and appeared at Naples' Opera San Carlo as Fiorilla in Rossini's Il Turco in Italia. In 2021, Fuchs was heard on conductor Marc Minkowski's recording of Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto, K. 87. ~ James Manheim, Rovi