Mexican tenor Javier Camarena is the preeminent Mozart and bel canto specialist of his generation. Praised for his burnished tone, gleaming high notes, flawless coloratura and veracious portrayals, he regularly appears in leading roles alongside today’s foremost stars at the world’s top opera houses.
In the 2021-22 season, the tenor can be seen in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the Gaetano Donizetti Theatre (Bergamo) in the role of Nemorino and begins a longstanding collaboration for the upcoming seasons of the Donizetti Festival. At the Metropolitan Opera in New York, he performs Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (Edgardo di Ravenswood), sings concert performances of Bellini’s Il Pirata at the Zurich Opera House and the role of Tamino in Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. Javier Camarena ends the season with 4 performances of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (Nemorino) at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
In recent seasons, Camarena once again showed his great diversity in opera roles and as a concert performer. At the Paris Opera, after his great success as Ernesto in Don Pasquale, he sang Arturo in I Puritani and starred at the Opéra national de Paris in highly appraised performances of La fille du regiment. He made his longed-for debut at the Teatro Real Madrid as Gualtiero in Bellini’s Il Pirata in one of the most difficult tenor roles ever. He returned to the Zurich Opera House as Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, before also performing this role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. As part of the Met Stars Live in Concert series, he joined Angel Blue, Pretty Yende and Matthew Polenzani for the New Year’s Eve Gala, live from the Parktheater at the Kurhaus Göggingen (Germany).
It was at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City that Camarena made his professional debut, as Tonio in a 2004 staging of La fille du régiment, and he has since returned to the house for three further productions. In 2007, he joined the ensemble of the Zurich Opera. Four years later, he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, which is one of the signature roles for which he is best known.
