Carlos Álvarez (baritone)
Carlos Álvarez (born 1966 in Málaga) is a Spanish baritone with an international opera career that began in the early 1990s. He won a Latin Grammy in 2001 for the title role in Merlin (with Plácido Domingo as King Arthur) and a Grammy in 2006 for Best Opera Recording for Ford in Falstaff.
Álvarez made his stage debut in 1990 at Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela in La del manojo de rosas. He has since sung leading roles on the world’s great stages, including La Scala (Milan), the Royal Opera House (London), Opéra Bastille (Paris), Liceu (Barcelona), Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía (Valencia), Teatro Real (Madrid), and other major houses such as the Bavarian State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Vienna State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Washington National Opera, and Zurich Opera.
His onstage roles include Escamillo in Carmen, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Iago in Otello, Gérard in Andrea Chénier, Don Carlo in Ernani, Don Carlo di Vargas in La forza del destino, the Duke of Nottingham in Roberto Devereux, Rodrigo in Don Carlos, and the title roles in Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Simon Boccanegra.
Álvarez made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1996 as Germont in La traviata, and has since performed there in Verdi operas such as Count Di Luna in Il trovatore (2002), Renato in Un ballo in maschera (2005), the Miller in Luisa Miller (2006), and the title roles in Rigoletto (2006) and Macbeth (2008).
In 2003 he received Spain’s Premio Nacional de Música for interpretation. In 2010 he was scheduled for several engagements (including Attila at the Met, Hamlet in Washington, and Simon Boccanegra in Madrid) but withdrew from some of them. In December 2019, he sang Iago in Otello for the Royal Opera.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:46 (CET).