Rolando Villazón

Thanks to his captivating performances in the most prestigious opera houses and concert halls, Rolando Villazón has established himself as one of today’s leading tenors and is also now regarded as one of the world’s most versatile artists, active not only as a singer but also as a director, writer and television personality. He has been artistic director of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation since 2021 and the intendant of Salzburg’s Mozartwoche Festival since 2019.

He appears regularly at the Berlin, Munich and Vienna State Operas, at La Scala, Milan, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Salzburg Festival, where he made his debut as Alfredo (La traviata) in 2005. He works with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors and has given concerts at London’s Barbican Centre, the Paris, Berlin and Cologne Philharmonies, the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, New York’s Carnegie Hall and elsewhere.

In 2011 Rolando Villazón made his debut as a director with Werther at the Opéra de Lyon. Since then he has directed productions at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Vienna Volksoper, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Semperoper Dresden. In 2022 he staged a much-praised production of Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Salzburg Festival; this production was also performed by the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in April 2023.

In the 2022/23 season he has made his role debut as Loge (Das Rheingold) at the Berlin State Opera under Christian Thielemann. Following this he has appeared in the title role of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (which he will also sing this summer for Santa Fe Opera) at the Semperoper, and in a concert of early Baroque music with L’Arpeggiata under Christina Pluhar in Geneva, Bayreuth and Lyon.

In autumn 2022 he made a recital tour through Switzerland, Germany and Austria. He has also presented the programme Serenata Latina with the harpist Xavier de Maistre at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, in Braunschweig and at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and appeared in gala concerts at the Festival der Nationen in Bad Wörishofen, in Prague, Sofia and Baden-Baden. In addition, he has continued his concert series Rolando Raconte with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.

In June 2023 he will appear as Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and in concerts at Bozar in Brussels and at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Rolando Villazón has been a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist since 2007 and has to date sold more than two million albums and released more than 20 CDs and DVDs, many of which have won awards. In France he has received the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He is an ambassador of Red Noses Clowndoctors International and a member of the Collège de ’Pataphysique in Paris. He has published three novels: Malabares (2013), Lebenskünstler (2017) and Amadeus auf dem Fahrrad (2020), which spent several weeks at the top of Der Spiegel’s list of bestselling books. Rolando Villazón has also hosted radio and television programmes for Arte TV, Radio Classique in France and Klassik Radio in Germany. In 2017 he was appointed Mozart Ambassador of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg.