Initially beginning his education at the École Centrale de Lyon, Naouri decided to concentrate on opera in 1986 and continued his musical studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where in his final year in June 1991 he appeared as the Director in Les mamelles de Tirésias.

Progressing rapidly, his career quickly comprised a very varied repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to contemporary composers under such conductors as Maurizio Benini, William Christie, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, and Kent Nagano.

In the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series, he appeared as Capulet in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette in 2017, as Pandolfe in Massenet's Cendrillon in 2018 (and the English version Cinderella in 2022), and as the High Priest in Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns in 2018.

He also was the Marquis de la Force at the Met in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites in 2023.

[2] Among his wide-ranging discography are: Saturne and Protée in Lully's Phaëton (1994), Pluton, Neptune and Jupiter in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1995) and as Thésée (1997), Lucifero in Handel's oratorio La Resurrezione (1996), Gaveston in Boieldieu's La Dame Blanche (1997), Jupiter in Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers (1998 - also video), Polyphème in Lully's Acis et Galatée (1998), Hidraot in Gluck's Armide (1999), Anténor in Rameau's Dardanus (2000), Claudio in Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict (2002), Balducci in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini (2004), and the title role in Donizetti's Le duc d'Albe (2016).