Skip to page content

Vicente Ombuena

About this Artist

VICENTE OMBUENA (Paco) was born in Valencia. He began his musical studies of piano and singing in Valencia’s Conservatory. In 1988 he won the First Price in the XXVI Edition of the Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition, as well as the award to the best tenor, given by Plácido Domingo.

For two years he was engaged with the Opera de Mainz, where he expanded the repertoire of opera, oratorio, and symphonic works. In 1994 he debuted in the Teatro alla Scala of Milan with the opera Don Pasquale, conducted by Riccardo Muti. Since then, he has performed in the major opera houses of the world, such as the Staatsoper of Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin, Covent Garden in London, and in such cities as Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Chicago, Strasbourg, and Hong Kong

He has collaborated with prominent conductors in both opera and symphonic concerts, including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Colin Davis, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Luis Antonio García Navarro, Miguel Ángel Gómez-Martínez, Antoni Ros Marbà, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Marcello Viotti, Pedro Halffter, and Juanjo Mena, among others.

Vicente Ombuena’s repertoire includes the main Romantic operas: Don Pasquale, Rigoletto, La traviata, La bohème, Falstaff, Otello, Nabucco, Simon Boccanegra, etc., as well as major works of the symphonic repertoire such as the Requiem by Verdi,  the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven, the Stabat Mater by Rossini, and the Messa di Gloria by Puccini. A career highlight was his performance of La vida breve by Manuel de Falla with the New York Philharmonic and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in Avery Fisher Hall.

Among his many recordings made for different labels, highlights include La traviata by Verdi, Cristoforo Colombo by Franchetti, La fanciulla del West by Puccini, the Verdi Requiem, and one CD of the “Gala de Jóvenes Cantantes.”