Arturo Chacón-Cruz: a Fantastic Tenor in Conversation

This is a conversation I have wanted to bring to Vocal Reckoning for quite some time. Arturo Chacón Cruz is one of the most accomplished Mexican tenors of his generation—and his is also one of those careers that is difficult to reduce to a few famous roles or a handful of important theaters. Born and raised in Sonora, Arturo grew up surrounded not by opera, but by Mexican popular music. As a teenager, he sang mariachi and serenades while at the same time pursuing studies in mechanical and industrial engineering. Opera entered his life almost by accident, but eventually took over completely. From the University of Sonora, his training led him to Mexico City, then to the Opera Institute at Boston University, the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, and the Houston Grand Opera Studio. And then, in 2005, came the breakthrough: he won both the Zarzuela and CulturArte prizes at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition. Domingo subsequently became one of his most important mentors, alongside another great Mexican tenor, Ramón Vargas. What followed has been a genuinely international career: more than 60 roles in some 30 countries, with appearances at La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, the Bolshoi, Teatro Real, La Fenice, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera—and, most recently, the Metropolitan Opera, where he made his debut in 2024 as Manrico in *Il Trovatore*. Arturo has become particularly identified with the central Italian and French tenor repertoire. Rodolfo in La Bohème has accompanied him throughout much of his career—he had already approached one hundred performances of the role several years ago—but his repertoire has steadily expanded through Alfredo, the Duke of Mantua, Don José and Werther to Hoffmann, Don Carlo, Cavaradossi, Manrico, Luigi in *Il tabarro*, and now increasingly the heavier Puccini repertoire. His career has also remained closely connected to Mexico. He has recorded Mexican and mariachi repertoire, performed with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora, and in 2025 celebrated twenty-five years as a professional singer with a gala at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. In 2024, he received the International Opera Awards’ Readers’ Award. And that connection to Mexico is also why this interview is a little different from most of the conversations you have seen on Vocal Reckoning. *The interview is in Spanish, with complete English subtitles.* Arturo is from Sonora; I am from Mexico City. And although both of us have spent much of our professional lives outside Mexico and both speak English fluently, it would have been rather artificial for two Mexicans to sit across from one another and conduct this conversation in English. So we didn’t. What follows is a conversation between two Mexican singers about a life in opera—about the path that took Arturo from mariachi serenades in Sonora to some of the most important opera houses in the world, and about the experiences accumulated over twenty-five years in a profession that has changed enormously during that time. For those who care about voices, about singers, about tradition—and about what it actually takes to build and sustain an international operatic career—Arturo Chacón Cruz has a great deal to say. Here is our conversation. #opera #tenor #classicalmusic #mexico #español