Juan Diego Flórez in Recital

From: Lima, Peru. LA Opera: Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville (2009); recital (2023).

With a career that includes performances on the world’s leading stages, Juan Diego Flórez has established himself as one of opera’s greatest talents with his expressive singing and virtuosity. His generosity, charisma and passion inspire his many philanthropic endeavors, in addition to his acclaimed operatic appearances and recordings.  

Juan Diego Flórez (born in Lima in 1973) began singing and playing Peruvian folk and pop music at an early age. He inherited from his family a love for Peruvian and Latin American music in general, and when he was a teenager, he wrote his own songs and sang live in the piano bars frequented by his schoolmates in Lima. In 1989, the young singer won Peru’s first Festival of Song for Peace, which was broadcast on television nationwide. 

In 1990, he gained a place at Peru’s National Conservatory of Music and later became a member of Peru’s National Choir. The Choir played a decisive part in his musical development, giving him the invaluable experience of performing music by the greatest composers at a professional level.  

Keen to travel and to continue his education, Juan Diego then won a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He studied there between 1993 and 1996, and had the opportunity to sing in a number of fully staged complete operas with an orchestra, an excellent foundation for what was to turn out to be a spectacular career.

In 1996, Juan Diego auditioned in Bologna for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and was immediately cast by its artistic director in a small role in Ricciardo e Zoraide. He never sang this part, however, because the events were about to catapult him into the firmament of the international opera world. 

It was summer 1996 and Juan Diego was already in Pesaro, rehearsing for Ricciardo e Zoraide. Shortly before the Festival’s opening night, the tenor who was due to sing the leading role of Corradino in Matilde di Shabran had to pull out because of illness. The organisers began a desperate search for a stand-in who might be up to the challenge – a less than easy task, given that this was a little-known opera, the first night was only days away, and Corradino is a very difficult role to sing. It was then that Artistic Director Luigi Ferrari offered the part to the 23-year-old Juan Diego, who accepted the offer and challenge. After a frenetic few days, the eagerly awaited first night arrived: August, 13, 1996. It was a huge hit, and marked the start of his stellar career. 

From that moment onwards, opera houses around the world set their sights on the young tenor, including the most famous of all: La Scala in Milan. Juan Diego made his La Scala debut on 7 December 1996 – a significant date, in that it was the opening night of the season – under the baton of Riccardo Muti, who was to be a key influence on the tenor over the next few years. Juan Diego had visited La Scala a few months earlier and, gazing out across the auditorium from one of the boxes, had said, with great prescience, “I’ll be singing here within ten years”. He could never have imagined that he’d be starring there just ten months later. 

Since then, he has appeared at all the world’s leading opera houses, concert halls and music festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera; Lyric Opera of Chicago; LA Opera; San Francisco Opera; Washington National Opera; Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Wexford Festival; Vienna Staatsoper; Salzburg Festival; Vienna Konzerthaus; Vienna Musikverein; Paris Opéra; Radio France and Montpellier Festival; Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris; Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Ópera de Lyon; Teatro Real, Madrid; Teatre Liceu, Barcelona; ABAO, Bilbao; Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville; Las Palmas, Gran Canaria; Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon; La Scala, Milan; Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro; Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome; Teatro San Carlo, Naples; Teatro Regio, Turin; Teatro Verdi, Trieste; Teatro Comunale, Bologna; Rome Opera; Teatro Massimo, Palermo; Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence; Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa; Teatro Filarmonico de Verona; Munich Staatsoper; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Dresden Staatsoper; Zurich Opernhaus, etc. 

Juan Diego Florez’s repertoire includes numerous bel canto roles in operas by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. In recent years, he has also expanded his repertoire to the French romantic repertoire, including operas like Werther, Roméo and Juliette, Manon and Les Hugenots, and Italian lyric roles ncluding the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, Alfredo in La Traviata and Rodolfo in La Bohème.

Juan Diego Flórez has recorded numerous solo albums, as well as complete operas on CD and DVD. He has been recognized as one of the best tenors in history by the BBC, and has received numerous accolades and awards including the Echo Klassik Preis, the Diapason d’Or, the Choc du Monde de la Musique and Gramophone Award, among others. In 2012, he received the Austrian’s government title of Kammersänger. 

Juan Diego Flórez has always maintained a close relationship with his native country, which has awarded him its very highest distinction: the Order of the Sun, Grand Cross. In 2011, he founded Sinfonía por el Perú, an inclusive social project inspired in the Venezuelan “El Sistema”, that aims to enhance the personal and artistic development of the most vulnerable children and youth in the country through music. In recognition of his work, he was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2012 and received the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum in 2014. 

Learn more at JuanDiegoFlorez.com.