Opera Scotland

Luigi Alva Suggest updates

Born Lima, 10 April 1927.

Peruvian tenor.

During most of his career, Luigi Alva was one of the best exponents of the sweet-toned light lyric tenor roles in the Italian repertoire, especially Rossini (Lindoro, Narciso, Almaviva, Ramiro), Donizetti (Nemorino) and Cimarosa (Paolino), as well as Mozart.

He studied in Lima, making his debut in Luisa Fernanda (Moreno Torroba) in 1949. He moved to Europe in 1954, and after a further year of training in Milan he made his European debut as Paolino for the opening of the newly built Piccola Scala theatre. This production was recorded and came to Edinburgh in 1957. He continued to sing at the Piccola Scala throughout his career, including premières of works by Malipiero, Chailly and Mortari.

He sang Almaviva many times, including the Callas recording of 1957 and the Glyndebourne one of 1963. It was the role for his Covent Garden debut in 1960, and he repeated it there several times over the next fifteen years. Other Covent Garden roles included Fenton, Ferrando and Nemorino, as well as Ramiro when La Scala visited London in 1976. His debut at the New York Met was in 1963. He was a regular performer at many of the European festivals, including Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Edinburgh and Aix-en-Provence.