Marcelo Raúl Álvarez was born on the 27th of February in 1962, in Cordoba, Argentina and he is one of the most important tenor of the world.

At the age of five he attends to the Escuela de Niños Cantores de Córdoba where he studies music until he is 17, when he receives the Diploma of  “chorus coach and music professor”. At the end of this course, he becomes the director of the forniture company of his family in Cordoba and, despite his achieved musical education, he starts studying at the Business College. For many years he completely gives up his musical studies, even if the love for singing always remains alive in the Argentinian tenor; indeed, at the age of 30, after many performances on his spare time of pop music in bars and karaokes, grows for him a singing wish. As he doesn't know what to sing, his wife suggests he should try to study opera. He does an audition by Mr. Liborio Simonella who, after hearing him, suggests he should study opera in Cordoba. At that time his knowledge of opera is rather scarce but in 1992 he starts singing lessons with Professor Norma Risso: after one year study, Alvarez goes back to Mr. Simonella who, after listening to him once again and having observed that he effected some improvements, decides to take him as a student, which means to Alvarez, to travel weekly from Cordoba to Buenos Aires to attend his lessons. It signifies a journey by bus of about 12 hours going and 12 hours to come back but his strong determination allows him to pursue his aim. During this period, Fam. Goldvaits helps him to afford the very expensive lessons, while for the journeys he is helped by Fam. Egea. At the same time he starts studying repertoire with Mr. Horacio Rogner. 

Mr. Simonella is so impressed by his student's skills that he foresees that in about four years he could sing all over the world. So, he starts doing some auditions in the Colon of Buenos Aires even if, at the beginning, he doesn't reach the success he expected. During this period, Alvarez performs in many Theatres in Argentina: his first role is Count Almaviva in Rossini's “Barbiere di Siviglia” in Cordoba in 1994. Then he sings in Federico Moreno Torroba's “Luisa Fernanda” with Ismael Pons in the Avenida Theatre of Buenos Aires, and in December the same year, in Donizetti's “Elisir d'Amore” in the Roman Theatre of Avellaneda near Buenos Aires.

In December 1994 the legendary tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano is invited to hold a master class in the “Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires” and in the meantime, to listen to the promising new talents among the professional singers of  the Colon Theatre.  Dr. Horacio Sanguinetti, who at the time was the Director of this institution and was sure of  Alvarez's talent, succeeds in putting him in the singer list. Thanks to this lucky “coincidence”, Di Stefano after having listened to Alvarez and talking to the present audience, points out: “You have good instinct, you remind me of when I was young” and addressing the auditorium adds: “This man sings with the heart, he’s going to take up a great career!” At last, speaking to Marcelo, he whispers to his ear “Sell everything and go immediately to Italy”.

In the 80s and 90s, Mr. Luciano Pavarotti periodically organized worldwide auditions in occasion of his “Pavarotti International Voice Competition”. In February 1995, arrives in Buenos Aires and listens to Alvarez's audition, he invites him immediately for the next year in Philadelphia (U.S.A.) , where it will take place the final rate of the competition.

With Pavarotti's invitation comes the one of Ismael Pons who offers him to perform the opera “Marina” in Minorca, Spain, organized for the Spanish baritone Juan Pons. These first performances allow Alvarez to cultivate his voice and to improve his actor skills and, thanks to the faith obtained by these starting experiences and to the enthusiastic encouragement offered by Di Stefano and Pavarotti, he and his wife decide to sell everything they own and go to Europe to improve the chances to carry on his career as an opera singer. At the same time he has some lessons with Mr. Renato Sassola.

Alvarez arrives in Europe in 1995 where he is suddenly involved in lots of activities, He performs the opera “Marina” in Spain and, in the month of July, he moves to Milan. Only after seven days after his arrival in Italy, Alvarez gains a competition in Pavia and in a month he stipulates many contracts with Teatro La Fenice of Venice, where Mr. Francesco Siciliani listens to him  and with Teatro Carlo Felice of Genoa where he does an audition with the great Director Mr. Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Both Mr. Gavazzeni and Mr. Siciliani employ Alvarez immediately. His debut at the Teatro La Fenice of Venice, takes place in the month of September the same year. On that occasion, Mr Siciliani offers him the chance to choose the debut role: the Argentinian tenor decides to perform the hard role of Elvino in Bellini's “Sonnambula”.

In November 1995 in Genoa he performs, in the first company,  the role of Alfredo in Verdi's “Traviata”. His partner in the play is Mariella Devia, one of the most famous Italian soprano, who performs for the first time in the same production the role of Violetta. On that occasion is Mariella Devia who definitely wants him as partner despite his little experience on first level international stages.

Thanks to this performance that meets the favour of critics and public, Alvarez sings once again the role of Alfredo during the following years in theatres all over the world: from Hamburg to London, from Met to Scala, from Tokyo to Vienna and at the same time he starts receiving proposals from all European Opera Theatres to perform new roles among which “La fille du régiment” in Bilbao, “Der Rosenkavlier” in Genova, and “Rigoletto” in Trieste, performed in 1996. Then he sings in “Puritani”, “Werther”, “Manon”, “Linda di Chamounix” and “Lucia di Lammermoor” in 1997.

In 1997 the Royal Opera House “Covent Garden” temporary closed for restoring, moves its performances to The Royal Festival Hall where, in November the same year, Alvarez  makes his debut in a Donizetti concert, “Linda di Cahmounix”. Then in 1998, he sings “La  Traviata” at the Royal Albert Hall and performs in the same production in Covent Garden tourné and in Baden under Placido Domingo's  direction.

His real debut at The Royal Opera House of London is in September 2000 with Offenbach's “Les Contes d'Hoffmann”. Alvarez sings many times in London and often he points out how this city has a special place in his heart, “because it is the first place in which I have felt the public screaming my name”.

In 1988 Alvarez makes his debut at Teatro alla Scala in a production of “Linda di Cahmonix” and, at the end of the same year, he sings in Zeffirelli's new production of “La Traviata” directed by James Levine. He sings the same Opera even in the Roman Theatre of Orange, Vienna, Paris and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In autumn 1998 Sony Classics releases his first soloist CD called “Bel canto”,  followed by other three CDs: “Marcelo Alvarez sings Gardel”, dedicated to the Argentinian Tango of Carlos Gardel, “French Opera Arias” and “The Tenor Passion” a collection of some of the most famous arias of Opera. Besides, Alvarez sings in the complete album of the opera “Manon” together with Renée Flemming, recorded live in the Opera Bastille. Alvarez can be admired also in many other DVDs such as “Bohème” at Teatro alla Scala, “Rigoletto” of Covent Garden,  Liceu de Barcellona and  the town of Siena, “Lucia di Lammermoor” recorded in Genoa and Tokyo, “Werther” for  the Wiener Staatsoper, “Tosca” of Arena di Verona, and “Un ballo in maschera” in Real Madrid's Theatre productions.

Alvarez goes back to Buenos Aires in spring 1989 for the production of  the famous film-documentary Marcelo Alvarez “In search of Gardel”. The film tells about the realisation of Alvarez's CD, Marcelo Alvarez “Sings Gardel” , that offers to modern audience a reproduction of the most famous tangos, being a credit to both the spirit and the style of the legendary tanguero. The songs of this album, were originally recorded by Gardel before his early death in 1935, represents some of the most traditional tangos.

As already mentioned, in 1997 he makes his debut in Massenet's “Werther”, and he performs this role in other eight opera theatres, such as Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper and Munich, in the following nine years. Another role that Alvarez performs on different occasions is the one of Edgardo in “Lucia of Lammermoor”, in eleven opera theatres in less than six years: The Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Zurich Opernhaus, The National Theatre of Munich and in Tokyo, Trieste, Genoa, Naples and London.

In Autumn 2001 Alvarez performs the role of the Duke of Mantova in the new and much discussed  production of “Rigoletto” directed by the Scottish David McVicar at the Royal Opera House of London. He plays in another McVicar's production in 2009, this time in Verdi's “Trovatore” at the Met.

At the same time he goes into more depth in the interpretation of the French repertoire, taking his Werther to Trieste, Toulouse, Covent Garden  to Wiener Staatsoper and to Munich where he performed “Romeo and Giulietta” and “Faust” too (even in Naples) so as “Manon” at the Metropolitan Opera House, San Carlo of Naples and Opera Bastille; he makes his debut in “Les Contes d'Hoffmann” at Covent Garden of London.

In Jenuary 2002 Alvarez performs the role of Alfredo in “Traviata” with Inva Mula for the opening of the new Theatre degli Arcimboldi that temporary substitutes the Teatro alla Scala until 2004. In the season 2002/2003 he keeps singing in this Theatre making the debut in Donizetti's “Lucretia Borgia” and in Puccini's “Bohème”, originally created for Luciano Pavarotti and realized by Franco Zeffirelli.

In June 2003, Alvarez and the Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra  record “Duetto”, a  collection of romantic ballades based on opera arias and other classical melodies. From a selection of “Duetto”, a concert in Roman Colosseum is organised, broadcasted in the United States by public television PBS later that summer. Alvarez performs another concert in New York in Central Park, in front of over than 50.000 people.

Alvarez sings with the most important directors such as Gianandrea Gavazzeni, James Levine,  Zubin Metha,  Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Oren,  Bruno Bartoletti, Marcello Viotti, Lopez Cobos, James Conlon, Riccardo Chailly, Stefano Ranzani, Jules Rudel, Miguel Angel Veltri, Antonio Pappano, Michael Plasson, Palumbo, Nicola Luisotti, Semyon Bychkov, Philippe Jordan e Gianandrea Noseda.

The year 2003, marks the beginning of Alvarez's transition towards a more dramatic repertoire of “lirico spinto” tenor, thanks to which he had some of his best success. In 2004 at Covent Garden of London he makes his debut in “Luisa Miller” and in his first “Riccardo” of “Ballo in Maschera” . Then he sings in Parma and Valencia.

Keeping on studying his new repertoire, in 2006 he makes his debuts in the role of Manrico in Verdi's “Trovatore” in Parma. Afterwards he debuts in the role of Cavaradossi in Puccini's “Tosca”  at the Royal Opera House of London performing with the Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and the bass-baritone Bryan Terfel, he performs the same role in Arena of Verona with Fiorenza Cedolins and the bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi in a new production directed by the Argentine film director Hugo De Ana.

Alvarez opens the 2009-2010 Met season as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca with the soprano Karita Mattila and the baritone George Gagnidze: it is a new and vexed production of the Swiss film director Luc Bondy, who substitutes Franco Zeffirelli's  sumptuous production that the Met performed for 24 years. The first performance is broadcasted free on a open air giant screen in Lincoln Center 's Josie Robertson Plaza in front of more than 3.000 people, and on more screens in Times Square, New York, for more than 2.000 people. An other performance is broadcasted in October, as a part of HD Met series, with the distribution all over the USA and in other 44 countries, for almost 300.000 people.

In the 2010/2011 season, he is engaged once again in a Tosca production at Zurich Opernhouse and in “Trovatore” at Metropolitan Opera House of New York. In December 2009 he makes his debut in “Andrea Chenier” at Opera Bastille in Paris in a new production of Giancarlo Del Monaco. In April 2010 he makes his debut at Covent Garden of London in Radames of Verdi's Aida.

At Palau Reina Sofia of Valencia he will be singing once again in “Tosca” and “Aida” and then he will be performing “Luisa Miller” in Paris at Opera Bastille. Moreover, he is going to sing in lots of concerts worldwide as a soloist. In summer 2010 he will go back to Arena of Verona to participate to “Carmen” and “Trovatore” performances.

Although the professional approach to opera has happened relatively in advanced age from an artistic point of view, Alvarez was able to develop his career with attention, both for the kinds of role performed and regarding the typology of assumed roles that for the progression of it drafts in which he has been involved. He gives the priority to the maintenance of “Bel Canto” values, to the voice tonal quality, to modulation of the  volume and  to vocal expression of the emotion.

The challenge and the boost offered by new roles keep Alvarez elating as shown by the brave choice to have enhanced his repertoire for three times, so as to have performed a lots of roles that, since his professional debut in 1994 till today, has not known interruptions, confirming his fame as a worldwide artist.