Ramón Vargas [b. 1960] is an operatic tenor from Mexico City, whose singing career began at the age of nine as a member of the boys’ choir of the Basilica of Guadalupe. Continuing his studies in his native country, Vargas took first prize in the 1982 Carlo Morelli National Vocal Competition. Shortly thereafter, he made his professional operatic debut in Monterrey, Mexico, in a production of Lo Speziale by G.F. Handel. He appeared in two additional roles on Mexican stages—as Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff, and as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni—before traveling to Italy in 1986 and taking the top prize in Milan’s Enrico Caruso Tenor Competition. That award was key in allowing him to continue his vocal studies with the school attached to the Vienna State Opera in the Austrian capital. Vargas continues to make his home in Vienna.
For Vargas, his international operatic debut came courtesy of a cancellation, replacing Luciano Pavarotti (as Edgardo) at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in a 1992 performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. A year later he reprised his Fenton role at La Scala in Milan, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the premiere of Falstaff.
Vargas has risen to become one of the sought-after tenors in opera. A list of the places where he has performed is a Who’s Who—or perhaps more accurately, a “Where It’s At”—of the most prominent venues around the world. In addition to the aforementioned New York and Milan opera houses, Vargas has appeared at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Teatro Real in Madrid, Opéra Bastille in Paris, Opera di Verona in Italy, and Covent Garden in London, among many others.
The Vargas repertoire is heavily invested in the Italian repertoire; most notably this includes works by Verdi and Donizetti. He has performed regularly as the lead tenor in La traviata, Un ballo in maschera, Rigoletto, and Don Carlos [Verdi], plus La favorita, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereaux, and L’elisir d’amore [Donizetti]. Thanks to the worldwide exposure offered by the “Met in HD” series that transmits Saturday afternoon performances of the Metropolitan Opera to movie theatres on five continents, Vargas has enjoyed great popular acclaim for such performances as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème [2008, opposite Angela Gheorghiu] and as Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin [2008, opposite Renée Fleming]. His most recent HD appearance was as Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) during the current [2011–12] Met season.
Vargas sings “Lensky’s Aria” from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin [Met Opera, 2008]:
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