The tenor Mario Zeffiri was born in Athens, where he studied law at the University. His vocal studies were with Juan Oncina in Barcelona and Michel Sénéchal in Paris. From his Rossini repertoire he performed the rôle of Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Montpellier Festival and at the Opera Houses of Bordeaux, Düsseldorf, Liège, Essen, Stockholm, Berlin, appearing as Ramiro in La Cenerentola in Trieste’s Teatro Verdi, Turin’s Teatro Regio and in Leipzig. Other rôles have included Norfolk in Elisabetta Regina d’Inghilterra, Lindoro in L’Italiana in Algeri, and Comte Ory. His Mozart rôles have included Tamino, Don Ottavio, Belmonte, Ferrando, Belfiore in La finta giardiniera and Alessandro in Il re pastore. He made his début in 2001 at La Scala, Milan, as Elvino in La Sonnambula, and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris as Ritornello in Gassmann’s L’Opera Seria. He made his first American appearance as Uberto in Rossini’s La donna del lago with Opera Orchestra of New York. He sang in Cavalli’s Eliogabalo at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and took the rôle of Apollo in the same composer’s Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne at La Coruña and then at the Valladolid Teatro Calderón, in the course of a busy and very successful international career.
