Espiritu was born in Morong, Rizal province, Philippines, and raised in nearby Tanay. His father sold fire extinguishers,
his mother worked as a secretary for the police. They emigrated to the US when Arthur was still a child; he joined them in
New Orleans when he was 14 or 15.
His voice was discovered in high school; when he developed a serious interest in music, his father asked him whether he was
gay (and certainly didn't mean it as a compliment!). He studied voice nonetheless, first at the University of New Orleans,
then at the Oberlin conservatory with Richard Miller.
After his first experiences in the US from 2004 onwards (above all in Pittsburgh, where he sang a mixed bag of main and
secondary roles), he made a quick and early Scala debut as Ferrando in 2007. That was not quite the level on which he would
continue, but he certainly embarked on a good career: first a member of the Sankt Gallen theater for a while, he soon sang in
Basel, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Cologne, Bonn, Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées), Versailles,
Munich (Gärtnerplatztheater), Frankfurt, Leipzig, Linz, Dublin and so forth.
His voice is beautiful and his top is good, but he could be a much better singer were he not such an obvious admirer of Luciano
Pavarotti and his adenoids.
Reference 1, reference 2, reference 3 and
picture source, reference 4, reference 5, reference 6
I wish to thank Oliver Barnedo for pointing me towards Espiritu.
