The Italian-Argentinian mezzo-soprano Nidia Palacios was born in Buenos Aires, where she attended the Carlos L. Buchardo Music Academy and later the Academy of Teatro Colón. She made her Argentinian debut in traditional Mozart and Rossini repertory (Così fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Il Barbiere di Siviglia etc.). ln 1989, as a winner of the Richard Wagner Foundation's Nuevas Voces Liricas, she was invited to Europe where she made her debut in Prague. Since then she has sung in most of the important theatres and with the major orchestras of Europe. In 1993 she became a resident artist at Staatstheater Kassel, Germany. Here she gained stage experience in such roles as Isabella in L'Italiana in Algeri, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Meg in Falstaff, Fenena in Nabucco, and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She has since been invited to sing most of these rôles in Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, Munich, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Dresden and Cologne. In May 1995 she made her debut as Carmen at the Opera Bolshoy in Minsk. She sung the same role one month later in Hamburg to the acclaim of both press and audience. In 1997 she won the Concorso Internazionale Giuseppe di Stefano in Trapani, and was cast to sing Angelina in La Cenerentola and Adalgisa in Norma. Since May 2000 she has been a resident artist at the Oper Frankfurt, Germany, where she has performed such rôles as Dorabella, Poppea and Fenena.
