After Dinner Speakers: Roberto Alagna, Bill Oddie, Christina Aguilera

Roberto Alagna was born in France of Sicilian parents. Following musical studies in Paris he won first prize in the 1988 Luciano Pavarotti International Competition in Philadelphia, USA, and made his stage debut, as Alfredo in La Traviata, with Glyndebourne Touring Opera in the same year. As a result, he was immediately engaged for that role by several major opera houses, and it was in a new production of La Traviata that he made an outstanding debut at La Scala in April 1990. The remarkable critical acclaim received by Roberto Alagna following his performances as Roméo at Covent Garden in November 1994 (in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette) confirmed his status as the finest lyric tenor of his generation. In March 2000 Alagna appeared alongside his wife, soprano Angela Gheorghiu, as the title roles of Roméo et Juliette at the newly re-opened Covent Garden Opera House. The production received rave reviews: The Evening Standard described Alagna's Roméo as "uniquely special, in a class of its own" and his French "crisp, fresh and forceful, bright and understandable: one of the ways he lives inside the role". The Times said that the "best thing about Alagna's Roméo was palpable evidence of the advances he has made as an artist since he first sang the role six years ago". In April 2000, he made a triumphant debut playing Gabriele Adorno in Verdi's Simone Boccanegra at the Salzburg Easter Festival in Austria under Claudio Abbado and the BPO, in August 2000 he played Canio in I Pagliacci by Leoncavallo at the Santander Festival in Spain, and in September 2000 he performed the role of Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. In November 2000 he performed as Don José in Bizet's Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Future performances include Verdi's Il Trovatore in Monte Carlo in March 2001 and in Florence in May where he will play the role of Manrico.