Rolando Villazón
Biography
Villazón’s musical life almost never happened. Before attending the conservatoire in Mexico City, he flirted with the priesthood.
Thankfully, music had a bigger pull and experience of singing 'Una furtiva lagrima' in front of 1500 people at a school concert made sure he followed his true vocation.
At the age of 11, he joined the Espacios academy for the performing arts, where he studied music, acting, contemporary dance and ballet. In 1990, Villazón met baritone Arturo Nieto who introduced him to the world of opera and there was no looking back.
In 1998, he won a place at Pittsburgh Opera's Young Artists Program where he appeared in productions of 'I Capuleti Ed I Montecchi', 'Lucia di Lammermoor' and Samuel Barber's 'Vanessa', but it was his brilliant European debut in 'Manon' in Genoa in 1999 which brought him to the world’s attention.
In January 2010, Villazón will be both a mentor and a panellist on ITV1's new prime-time show, Popstar to Opera Star .
Music
Rolando has won numerous major awards including the French honour Les Victoires de la Musique for 'Foreign Discovery of the Year', the ECHO Classics 2004 prize for his first solo recording of Italian arias and a Gramophone 2005 Recital Award for his second album 'Gounod & Massenet Arias'.
He has performed at leading theatres across the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Opera National de Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Berlin State Opera, New York City Opera and many others.
On 8 February Rolando Villazón releases 'Tenor' an exclusive album to the UK. On Tenor, Villazón showcases some of the leading arias as popularised by operatic legends including The Three Tenors - Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras. The greatest tenor arias on this disc vary from sophisticated Handel, emotional operatic greats by Verdi and Puccini, through to 20th Century classics from Bernstein’s West Side Story and Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.
Take a behind-the-scenes look at the new album 'Tenor', out to buy on 8th February, in the video clip below:
Discography
2010 - Tenor
2009 - Handel
2008 - Lamenti
La Boheme
Cielo e mar
2007 - Viva Villazón! - Rolando Villazón - Best Of CD
Duets - Anna Netrebko & Rolando Villazón
Gitano - Zarzuela Arias
2006 - Monteverdi: Il Combattimento
Opera Recital
2005 - Merry Christmas (OST)
La Traviata
Tristan und Isolde
Gounod & Massenet Arias
2004 - Italian Opera Arias
Berlioz: La Révolution Grecque
2002 - Der Fliegende Holländer
Romeo y Julieta
