An important contribution to Kraus’ fame was his Werther of early 1976 at the Teatro alla Scala, repeated in 1980 with Elena Obraztsova, Daniela Mazzuccato, Alberto Rinaldi and in 1984 at the Paris Opera with raving press reviews. Progressively more frequent were his appearances in Vienna, London, Paris and South America, especially at the Colon of Buenos Aires, where Kraus recalled: “During a performance of Favorita, my rendition of 'Spirto gentil' was acclaimed for 10 minutes by the audience who demanded an encore”. In Vienna, Kraus became one of the most favorite singers of the very warm local public, who openly applauded wherever he made an appearance even as a spectator. As from 1988, his name figures in the golden album of the Vienna Opera Kammersanger. Spain, France and Italy bestowed more honours upon him.

As the years went by, Kraus reduced the number of operatic performances to 20-25 a year, and increased his appearances on the concert stage. He never missed his summer holidays at his splendid villa of Lanzarote. Kraus was still active in the early to mid nineties, at nearly 70 years of age, singing with the usual correct technique, style, personality and “musicalita’”. Shortly before his death, he sang Lucia and Werther with unchanged voice and phrasing. He passed away on 10 September 1999 in Madrid.

The career of Alfredo Kraus span over 35 years and, for more than 20 years, his name became known internationally as that of a singer of rare and refined worth. He embodied all the vocal quality of a tenor “di grazia,” which is spontaneity, sweet sounds and gracious stage presence, out-shining in Sonnambula, Elisir, Don Pasquale and Falstaff. His elegant and agile passage to cutting top notes opened him the door to Favorita, Puritani, Figlia del reggimento and Rigoletto. He was adaptable to the florid belcanto of Rossini in Barbiere, Cenerentola, L’Italiana, Turco in Italia and Conte Ory. He was congenial to Mozart in Don Giovanni, Cosi’ fan tutte, Flauto magico and the French repertoire as a sublime Werther. "His many recordings of complete works (from the 1950's with Sorozabal, the 1960's and 70's - and then the Indian Summer with Auvidis Valois, including the finest "Dona Francisquita" of the three he committed to record); not to mention many zarzuela 'romanza' (aria) LP/CD recitals testify to his enormous popularity and influence in this important musical sphere. It was as a 'zarzuelero' that Spaniards revered him - and turned out in their thousands to witness his coffin's last journey through Madrid."[¹]

From a technical point of view, he gave variety to his voice using piani, pianissimi, smorzature, rinforzati and top notes with colour bursting into a head squillo, which Mr. Gualerzi, a top Italian critic, felt it was a falsetto. In a Spanish magazine, Ritmo, of March 1978, Kraus replied to Gualerzi by saying: ” I never attempted the falsetto technique. I never felt the need for it and further I do not know how to do it. Maschera and falsetto are two wholly different emission techniques. If you do one you cannot do the other. It is not easy to shift the voice from one position to the other.”

From an interpretative point of view, critics accused him of being unconvincing as a role maker early in his career, lacking participation to the stage events, incisiveness and robust expressive depth. Kraus acknowledged that he had dwelt more on technical perfection than character study. He was able to put remedy to his interpretative shortcoming in Lucia and Puritani, by giving a great and noble deportment to the characters of Edgardo and Arturo of almost heraldic proportions. Later on, in the seventies, he brought complete maturity to his roles, especially those of Des Grieux (Manon) and Werther.