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Juan Diego Flórez was born in Lima, Peru on January 13, 1973 where his father, Rubén Flórez, was a noted guitarist and singer of Peruvian folk and Creole music. Initially intending to pursue a career in popular music, he entered the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Lima at the age of 17. His classical voice emerged in the course of his studies there under Maestro Andrés Santa María. During this time, he became a member of the Coro Nacional of Peru and sang as a soloist in Mozart's Coronation Mass and Rossini's Le Petite Messe Solennelle.

He received a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he studied from 1993 to 1996 and began singing in student opera productions in the repertory which is still his specialty today, Rossini and the Bel Canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti. During this period, he also studied with Marilyn Horne at the Santa Barbara Academy Summer School. In 1994 the Peruvian tenor, Ernesto Palacio invited him to Italy to work on a recording of Martin y Soler's opera Il Tutore Burlato and subsequently became Flórez's teacher and mentor.

Flórez's first big breakthrough and professional debut came at the Rossini Festival in 1996, when at the age of 23 he stepped out of the chorus to take the leading tenor role of Corradino in Matilde di Shabran, when Bruce Ford became ill. He made his debut at La Scala in the same year as the Cavaliere danese in Gluck's Armide. His Covent Garden debut followed in 1997 where he sang the role of Count Potoski in a concert performance (and the first modern performance) of Donizetti's Elisabetta. Debuts followed at the Vienna Staatsoper in 2000 as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi and at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2002 as Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

He has been awarded the Premio Abbiati 2000 (awarded by Italian critics for the best singer of the year), the Rossini d'oro, the Bellini d'oro, the Premio Aureliano Pertile, the Tamagno Prize and the L'Opera award (Migliore Tenore) for his 2001 performance in La Sonnambula at La Scala.

He was signed by Decca in 2001 and since then has released three solo recital CD's on the Decca label: Rossini arias which won the 2003 Cannes Classical Award, Un Furtiva Lagrima, won the 2004 Cannes Classical Award, and most recently Great Tenor Arias. The CD's have met with positive reviews regarding his technique. The most common complaint about his singing is his possible lack of individual characterization of each role.

Roles Sung On Stage

Bellini
I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Tebaldo
I Puritani - Arturo
La Sonnambula - Elvino

Donizetti
Don Pasquale - Ernesto
Elisabetta - Count Potosky
L'elisir d'amore - Nemorino
La Fille du Regimént - Tonio
Maria Stuarda - Leicester

Gluck
Armide - Cavaliere danese

Lehar
The Merry Widow - Camille de Roussillon

Paisiello
Nina, o sia, pazza per amore - Lindoro

Rossini
Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Conte di Almaviva
La Cenerentola - Don Ramiro
L'italiana in Algeri - Lindoro
Matilde di Shabran - Corradino
Il Signor Bruschino - Florville
Semiramide - Idreno
Le Comte Ory - Comte Ory
Otello - Rodrigo
Il viaggio a Reims - Libenskof and Belfiore

Rota
Il Cappello di Paglia di Firenze - Fadinard

Strauss
Die Fledermaus - Alfred

Verdi
Falstaff - Fenton

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