Omar Franco is a Dominican singer, composer and actor, born on 11 June in Castañuelas, in Monte Cristi. He grew up in La Vega, and he has been working since 1971.

La Vega

He won first place at the first Festival de la Voz Vegana in La Vega in 1971 and went straight into Rafelito Martínez’s orchestra as a bolero singer. He had started a year of medicine at the UASD and left it for this.

In November 1972 he entered the fifth Festival de la Canción Dominicana at the Palacio de Bellas Artes with Por Ti, a song of his own, and came out with three prizes: third as its composer, third as its performer, and Revelation of the Festival. The Puerto Rican singer Carmita Jiménez recorded the song afterwards, and La Vega declared him an adopted son.

He was a finalist at the international song festival in Puerto Rico in both 1973 and 1975.

The conservatory

He studied singing with the lyric soprano Olga Azar at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, and in 1977 he sang Gastone in Verdi’s La Traviata at the Teatro Nacional under Carlos Piantini.

A Dominican romantic singer taking a role in an Italian opera is not a detour. It is what separates a voice that will last from a voice that will not, and it explains why he could still be singing four decades later.

1979 to 1983

His first LP, Mis Años Con Ella, was recorded for RCA Victor in Mexico in 1979. That same year he represented the Dominican Republic at the eighth OTI Festival with Mi Mundo.

February 1982 brought the best performer award at the Festival de la Canción Dominicana with Ven y Abrázame, written by Leonor Porcella de Brea. In May he shared a stage with Lola Flores, Lolita Flores, Carmen Flores and Carmen Sevilla in El Show de Las Flores; in August he played Altos de Chavón with Luchy Vicioso.

In December 1982 he sang the title role in the Spanish-language Jesus Christ Superstar at the Teatro Nacional, and the production was revived the following March. The El Dorado prize for male singer came in February 1983.

He then went out: Raúl Velasco’s Siempre en Domingo, first from Altos de Chavón in April 1983 and then from Televisa in Mexico in November, and the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in May.

The records and the theatre

Ven y Abrázame came in 1982, then Dos Estrellas Omar y Taty a Medianoche in 1985 with the singer Taty Salas — a record whose sleeve took the Casandra for cover of the year in 1986. El Mejor Amor followed in 1987 and Omar Franco Otra Vez in 2009.

He acted too. He took two starring roles in the musical Amor a Primera Vista at the Teatro Nacional in April 1986, with an orchestra conducted by Manuel Tejada, and he was part of Imagen y Sonido de Broadway there in July 1998, a production of Amaury Sánchez with more than a hundred performers.

The anthologies

He appears across the collective records that the country made of its own songbook: Homenaje a la Canción Romántica Dominicana, released by the Banco de Reservas in 1981, where he sang Tú Me Haces Falta by Armando Cabrera and Amorosa by Salvador Sturla; La Música de sus Versos in 1986; and José Francisco Eterno, the 1999 tribute to José Francisco Peña Gómez, with La Gloria No Tiene Final.

Acroarte recognised his career at the Casandra nominations gala on 22 February 2011. El Dorado, El Gordo del Año, La Cotorra in Santiago and El Disco del Año had come earlier.