concerts, one in Zagreb and the second in Nancy. The latter performance came a year after his celebrated master class for Nancy Opera Passion and in advance of his 2010 masterclass in the same city. The Auditorio de Tenerife hosted Cura in November when he brought his Otello to the Atlantic Island for the fall festival. He then closed the month of November in Mannheim starring in the verismo twins. Cura sang his first Calaf in Verona in 2003; nearly six years later, he brought his dangerous and controversial prince to Covent Garden. Cura continued the 2008/2009 season with symphonic concerts in Bologna, and Budapest, Stiffelio, Carmen, and Tosca in Vienna, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at the Met in New York, and Turandot, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci in Zurich. 2010–present Cura continues to tour concert halls and opera houses around the world, performing his signature roles of Otello, Samson, Canio, Turiddu, Don José, Stiffelio, Cavaradossi, Dick Johnson, Calaf, Edgar etc. – debuting in La Bohème as Rodolfo at the Zurich Opera House in 2010. He took his Otello to the Met in 2013, not before saving the last performance of Carmen at the same opera house, a favour which he had been asked to do the very moment he landed in New York, jet-lagged, from Europe. Without rehearsals and very little sleep, Cura performed the role of Don José. His performance of Otello at the Salzburg Easter festival in 2016 was in the opinion Giacomo Parini of the Milano Gazzetto to be "one of the most vulgar performances of Otello in memory. Verdi and all proponents of beautiful singing are rolling in their graves." Career as conductor Originally trained as an orchestral conductor, his vocal talents were unrecognised until 1988. He became the first artist to sing and conduct simultaneously (both in concert and on recordings) and the first to combine singing with symphonic works in a ‘half and half’ concert format. Cura made operatic history when he first conducted Cavalleria Rusticana and then stepped on stage after intermission to sing Canio in Pagliacci at the Hamburg State Opera in February 2003. He accepted a three-year assignment as principal guest conductor of Sinfonia Varsovia, a position previously held by the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin, in early 2001. Cura inaugurated his partnership with a concert in Warsaw in November. Cura subsequently led his orchestra in a series of highly acclaimed performances