Margarita Gonzalez Ontiveros

Who is Margarita Gonzalez Ontiveros?

Margarita Gonzalez Ontiveros was a Mexican-born mezzo-soprano and contralto. She combined a bel canto technique with interpretation in French, Russian Spanish, Italian, German and Nahuatl. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto music of Salvador Moreno Manzano, and Carlos Jiménez Mabarak; further, to the works of Blas Galindo, Manuel Ponce and Tata Nacho . In her career she took challenges as to sing many Mexican pieces of Sonido 13, a microtonal system invented by Julián Carrillo in 1925.

Born in Parral, Chihuahua, and raised by her mother Guadalupe Ontiveros Mardueño and a musician and band director in Oaxaca, Prospero Gonzalez. Her first opera was Wagner's Die Walküre at age 12.

She received her musical education Mexico and established her career in France where she won the first prize of French music interpretation in the École Française du Paris in 1955.