Alfredo Kraus Trujillo was born at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on 24 November 1927, the third of three sons and a daughter to Otto Kraus, a Spanish journalist of Austrian descent, and Josefa Trujillo, a local girl. Alfredo spent his youth quietly at Las Palmas, in a provincial society dedicated to cultural and musical activities, particularly opera. Otto and Josefa Kraus went regularly to the local theatre to see operas featuring at times famous singers who used to stop at the Canary Islands on their sea journey to Latin America. In their home, it was usual and enjoyable for the Kraus family to sing operatic tunes with piano accompaniment. Alfredo voluntarily joined the school choir, received voice lessons privately and showed keen interest in opera and zarzuelas at the Las Palmas theatre. In 1945, he started a three years electronic course at the faculty of Engineering. The voice of the Danish tenor Roswaenge and radio broadcasts by famous Italian singers, Beniamino Gigli, Maria Caniglia and Gino Bechi deeply impressed the young Alfredo. He also sang as a second tenor with the local philharmonic choir well applauded by the locals, who soon talked enthusiastically about Alfredo’s uncommon vocal talent. This fact drove Otto to ask his son to consider taking on serious singing at the completion of University. Alfredo agreed without hesitation, since he had already decided to embrace a singing career.

In 1948, the twenty one year old Alfredo left for Barcelona where he studied singing for two years under a Russian she-teacher, Gali Markoff, who applied a rigorous and scientific method to his natural but light weight voice. For six months in 1952, after two years of military service in Valencia, he was a pupil of an old singing teacher, Francisco Andres, who taught him a singing technique similar to that imparted by Mercedes Llopart, the great Spanish singer and teacher. Alfredo was back to the Canary Islands for two years when he became engaged to Rosa Blanca Lej Bird, a ravishing Spanish girl of Las Palmas with Scottish roots. He married her in 1956. In 1955, he took the road to Italy, considered the centre of melodrama for excellence. In Milan, he met with the celebrated Llopart. Under her guidance, he learnt the correct positioning of sound in the “mask” (the facial cavities of resonance), how to lean on the diaphragm and in fact compress the breath between diaphragm and mask, all elements of the famous Lamperti-Garcia singing technique of the mid 1800. Llopart would explain and sing with Alfredo, go through full operatic scores, including the recitatives, and stop at each note. Llopart impressed upon his pupil to refrain from singing in public while studying and exercising technique. She used to say: “ In front of an audience, a singer forgets to control the voice and gives vent to emotions. Without technique, little can be communicated to the audience: how is it possible to produce mezze voci, filature, chiaro-scuri, and give stage expression to what one sings unless one uses technique?”

Soon the choice of a suitable repertory for Kraus became an issue. Llopart felt that Kraus’ voice, endowed with a lot of timbre, would be suited to lirico-spinto roles in small theatres. Hence, Kraus studied Tosca and Manon Lescaut scores. The sound was beautiful but the voice became strained. On the other hand, he never got tired when singing Rigoletto. In the end, Llopart agreed that Kraus should keep to lirico-leggero roles, at least at the beginning. Throughout his entire career, Kraus made full treasure of his early experience and kept rigidly to a repertory, which would exalt the exquisite style, characteristic colour and expressive strength of his lyrical singing. His motto was: ”Never take a step longer than your leg”.

In early 1956, Kraus made his operatic debut in Cairo, Egypt, as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, co-starring Anna Maccianti (Gilda), Enzo Mascherini (Rigoletto), and Cavaradossi in Tosca, with Luciana Serafini (Tosca) and Piero Guelfi (Scarpia). Kraus recalled that his lirico-spinto of Cavaradossi was a success in the Egyptian small theatre and orchestra. In a large theatre and orchestra, his voice would have had to open up and lose its characteristic colour. There was another performance as Cavaradossi in the small theatre of Cannes, France, after which Kraus never sang again the famous Puccinian role. In mid and late 1956, he was Alfredo in La Traviata at Venezia and Torino, a role that made him known and popular throughout Italy of the late fifties.