From: Mexico City, Mexico. LA Opera: Nemorino in The Elixir of Love (1996, debut; 1999); title roles in Werther (1998), Don Carlo (2018) and Roberto Devereux (2020).
Ramón Vargas is one of the leading tenors of our time and one of the most sought-after worldwide.
His international debut took place in 1992, when the Metropolitan Opera asked him to sing Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor opposite June Anderson, substituting for Luciano Pavarotti. This was soon followed by a debut on the stage of La Scala, in 1993, where he performed Fenton in a new production celebrating the centenary of Falstaff, conducted by Riccardo Muti.
He now regularly performs at all the major opera houses all over the world to great acclaim:
Buenos Aires Teatro Colón (La Favorita), London Royal Opera House (Un Ballo in Maschera, La Bohème, Rigoletto, La Traviata), Milan's La Scala (Falstaff, Rigoletto, La Traviata), Metropolitan Opera (Attila, La Bohème, The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, Der Rosenkavalier), Madrid Teatro Real (Werther), Paris Opéra-Bastille (Rigoletto, La Traviata), San Francisco Opera (Un Ballo in Maschera, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor), Vienna State Opera (La Bohème, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux), Arena di Verona (The Barber of Seville, Rigoletto), and others.
In addition to his operatic career, he is also an accomplished concert singer, with an extensive repertoire ranging from Italian classical songs to romantic German Lieder and melodies by French, Mexican and Spanish composers from the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1998, he offered a memorable recital at La Scala and his renditions of popular Mexican songs have been met with enthusiasm at massive concerts across Europe and Mexico.
He was awarded the Lauri-Volpi Award for the Best Opera Singer of the 1993 Italian season, and in 1995 Italian critics were unanimous in awarding him the Gino Tani Award for the Arts. In 2000, British Opera Now declared Ramón Vargas Artist of the Year. Each year, since 1999, Austrian Festpiele magazine has given him the first place among the best tenors in the world. In 2001, he received the ECHO Klassik - Singer of the Year Award from the German Phono Academy.
He lives with his wife Amalia and his two sons Fernando and Rodrigo in Vienna, Austria. (RamonVargas.com)
