Tenor Villazon chooses Vienna for comeback

(AFP/SCHAADFOTO)

Mexican star tenor Rolando Villazon, who cancelled all his 2009 engagements after a cyst was found on his vocal chords, will make his comeback in Vienna in March, the Vienna State Opera said Monday.

The 37-year-old, who announced last month that his voice "is back", will make a one-off appearance in Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore" on March 22, where he will sing the role of Nemorino, the opera said in a statement.

Villazon is then scheduled to sing the role of Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" at the Berlin State Opera on March 26 and 31 and April 2.

Villazon, who shot to super-stardom alongside Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in Verdi's "La Traviata" in Salzburg in 2005, already had to take an extended break from the concert platform and opera stage in 2007 due to vocal problems.

This year, he announced in April that he was cancelling all his 2009 performances, and underwent vocal surgery, with some observers suggesting his career might be over for good.