As Mario says, “You have to show your personality, your character, your education, and most of all your truth... You have to express the hopes of your soul, and that’s what my music is about...That is the number one thing I do...It’s simply about what it means to be human.”
In March, 2008 he was invited by Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams to be her official Global Ambassador for Peace for the World Centers of Compassion for Children International (WCCCI), partnering with her and other Nobel Peace Laureates such as, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, President Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Oscar Arias, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, and Jody Williams on a global education and awareness campaign to take children and their families out of refugee camps and war-torn countries to “Cities of Peace” that will be built specifically as violence-free zones all over the world.
Most recently, he has recorded the Randy Newman song “Feels Like Home” on a major compilation CD called Give Us Your Poor with Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Natalie Merchant, Jewel, Bonnie Raitt and others in support of this important education and awareness project to end homelessness.
Finally, it is Mario the person who is a true humanitarian. He is recognized all over the world for his philanthropic work and commitment to humanitarian causes, such as: Voices for Darfur, José Carreras’ Leukemia Foundation, AIDS, The Horatio Alger Association and especially those causes pertaining to the protection of children on the planet.
Frangoulis’ live performances are a true reflection of his persona as an artist: diverse and far reaching. He is able because of his vocal and theatre training to reach across boundaries and touch his audiences through language (singing in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Greek), musical style (opera, pop, rock, folk, world), and impeccable interpretation. As a result, he has successfully performed in events such as the Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics 2004 in Athens, and has collaborated with many artists ranging from Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Monserrat Caballé and Hayley Westenra, to Jim Brickman, Justin Hayward, Lara Fabian, Lucio Dalla, Alejandro Fernandez, and many more.
Other recordings by Mario include Live at Iera Odos with George Dalaras, The Garden of Wishes, Music of the Night, Amor Oscuro and his latest album Passione – A Tribute to Mario Lanza, with several new projects underway.
The tenor signed with Sony Classical New York in 1999 and has since then had a parallel recording career of his international releases and Greek albums with Sony Classical Greece. His first personal album Fengari Erotevmeno became triple platinum in Greece and in 2002 marked the release of his first international album Sometimes I Dream followed by Follow Your Heart in 2004.
Despite his intensive training, Frangoulis is anything but a conventional operatic singer. He won the role of Tony in West Side Story in its first performances at Milan's Teatro alla Scala. He has appeared in films and on television, in concerts and even in epic presentations of Greek tragedies. In his native Greece, Mario has been acclaimed in everything from the role of high-school hero Danny Zuko in Grease to a production of Aristophanes' The Birds featuring the songs of Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis (the Oscar-winning composer of "Never On Sunday") in the ancient amphitheater at Epidaurus. As an actor, Mario has played leading roles in King Lear, The Bacchae and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and he created the title role in Kit Hesketh-Harvey and James Mackonnell's Yusupov. More recently, he played the role of Alfred Drake from Kiss Me Kate in the film De Lovely, performing the song “So In Love” with Lara Fabian.
Under the mentorship of the legendary Marilyn Horne, Frangoulis went to Rome to audition for the acclaimed tenor Alfredo Kraus who was performing with Nicola Rescigno (Maria Callas’s favorite conductor). Both were impressed. Mario became the only private student the late Kraus ever accepted. As a result, Frangoulis travelled all over the world with Kraus while he performed. This intensive training cultivated Frangoulis’ solid vocal technique, and good high notes, both hallmarks of Kraus's style. He then continued his studies at the Julliard School in New York, under the guidance of Dodi Protero, solidifying his skill as a vocalist and trained musician.
However, it was also in his days at Guildhall that Mario discovered the operatic side of his tenor voice. He won the Maria Callas Prize, which he auditioned for simply because a friend (who realized he had a tenor voice) encouraged him. Juggling this newfound opportunity in opera with an emerging stage career was a challenge, but nonetheless, he found himself on a path to Italy to study opera with Carlo Bergonzi.
He studied the violin and even composed a bit when he was a boy. At the age of 17, he was sent to London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama to study acting. While at Guildhall, he was discovered by Cameron Macintosh who immediately hired him upon his graduation as Marius in Les Misérables in London’s West End. Soon thereafter, he was invited by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to play the role of Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera to great critical acclaim.
Frangoulis was born in Africa — in colonial Rhodesia, as it was becoming the nation of Zimbabwe — and survived a childhood marked by hardships. At the age of four, his mother found a home for him with her sister in Greece, at a time when the political situation in Africa was explosive and dangerous. Raised by his aunt in Greece and separated from his beloved older brother, Mario was surrounded with a large extended family, but still felt the loneliness of being a child without his parents. Today, he speaks fondly of both sets of parents and the feeling for music they instilled in him.
Mario Frangoulis is a tenor of the 21st century, with the ability to sing everything from a hard-rock anthem to an operatic aria. "My greatest love is opera and classical music," Mario says, "I always sang, from an early age, with a record player - with Greek singers, of course, but also recordings of movie musicals, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand. I knew I had a good voice but I didn't know I had an operatic voice. In the beginning, I was against anyone saying I had that kind of operatic sound. I had always felt I didn't belong in that category. I wanted to communicate the music, and I didn't think opera singers sounded young enough, modern enough. Then I saw a performance of Carmen in Athens with José Carreras and Agnes Baltsa, and I realized I could be all of those things."