Otoniel Gonzaga
31 July 1942 Iloilo (Philippines) – 13 January 2018 Vienna
In RA format
In RA format
| Otoniel Gonzaga sings | Otello: Sì, pel ciel, with Jacek Strauch
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In RA format
In RA format
In RA format
Gonzaga's mother Anita was a concert mezzosoprano, his father an ophtalmologist. In the Philippines,
Otoniel Gonzaga started to study medicine, but when the whole family moved to the US in 1963, he studied voice instead at the
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with Margaret Harshaw and Richard Lewis, among others. He started his career, on a very modest level, in the US in 1967.
Success grew when he moved to Europe after winning a Third Prize at a singing competition organized by the German TV channel
ARD. Gonzaga sang in Trier (1973–77), Augsburg (1977–79), Frankfurt (1979–88) and Köln (1988/89), and
made regular guest appearances in Stuttgart, at the Munich Gärtnerplatztheater, and particularly at the Vienna Volksoper,
where he appeared frequently from 1984 to 2014. Further appearances: Teatre del Liceu (1975), Wiesbaden, Saarbrücken,
Nürnberg, Düsseldorf, Hannover, Hamburg, Zürich, Bern, Basel, Graz, Antwerp, Genova, Madrid, Glasgow, Boston,
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York City Opera, Anchorage, Prague, Beijing...
Gonzaga's repertory was wide; he started in roles like Almaviva, Ferrando or Gounod's Faust, and ended up singing Manrico, Luigi,
Don José, Grigorij or Otello. Other than that, he sang a lot of operetta, particularly Sou-Chong.
Reference
I wish to thank Georges Cardol for the recordings.
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