The Mexican tenor Francisco Araiza made his concert debut in Mexico City in 1969, where he subsequently appeared for the first time in opera in 1970 as Jaquino. He went to Europe and took master-classes with Richard Holm and Erik Werba at the Munich Musikhochschule after having won the Bavarian Broadcasting Voice Competition. Francisco Araiza has performed in all the main opera houses of the world and has participated in all great international festivals like Bayreuth, Salzburg (where he had his debut in 1980 under Herbert von Karajan). From 1983 on this most versatile singer who was already known as the best interpreters of Mozart and Rossini became a leading tenor of the Italian lirico-spinto, the French and heavier German repertory with roles like Edgardo, Alfredo, Duke of Mantua, Riccardo III, Don Alvaro, Des Grieux, Faust, Hoffmann, Werther, Romeo, Max, especially however as the young Wagner hero with Lohengrin in 1990 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and recently Walter von Stolzing in the Metropolitan Opera's new production in 1993, which highlighted this vocal and artistic development equally acclaimed by public and press. Besides his operatic engagement, Francisco Araiza is also a highly esteemed concert and Lieder-singer which can be shown by his nomination ‘Best musical event of the year 1988’ for his Tokyo recital. Francisco Araiza has done almost fifty recordings for labels as Philips, DGG, EMI, RCA, CBS, Teldec, Orfeo and Atlantis as well as in lots of video productions for which he was awarded with the ‘Deutscher Schaliplattenpreis’ and the ‘Orphée d'Or’. He was named ‘Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera’ in 1988. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.