Baritone Nguyễn Khắc Hòa's story starts in a remote Vietnamese village with no electricity, where he had never even heard of an opera house. Today he's a soloist with the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet (VNOB), performing roles like the chilling Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca — and he's channeling his career into opening doors for young Vietnamese musicians.

After a recent, widely praised turn as the villainous Scarpia, Hòa explained how much work goes into playing a cruel man of power. Singing the notes, he says, isn't enough — he studied other performers' walks, gazes and body language, and endured nearly a month of rehearsals, sometimes three sessions a day running until 10pm under a meticulous South Korean director. Colleagues admitted he looked genuinely frightening on stage. His philosophy: darkness in a villain makes the goodness of the other characters shine brighter.

His path was anything but smooth. He failed a music school entrance exam on his first try, spent a year studying in Nha Trang, then got into Huế Conservatory of Music — ranked last of 21 admitted students. By the end of his first year he was top of the class. "What matters is not where you start, but how far you go," he says.

After 12 years of training in Russia, with contracts on offer in Europe, Hòa chose to return home — for coffee, bánh mì and conversations with friends in Hanoi, but also to teach vocal music at the Vietnam National Academy of Music and pass on what he learned performing across Vietnam, Europe and Japan. His resume includes the 2015 Grand Prix at Moldova's Doua Inimi Gemene Competition and a Special Prize at the 2023 Elena Obraztsova International Competition of Young Opera Singers.

His education push is where travellers might cross paths with his work. In 2024 he organised a concert with European artists plus free masterclasses in Hanoi, Huế and Đà Nẵng, and in 2025 he partnered with Italy's Conservatorio Vecchi-Tonelli on music education projects in Vietnam. If you're visiting Hanoi, catching a VNOB performance is a chance to see this homegrown talent scene up close — world-class opera at local prices, in a grand French colonial-era theatre.

For culture-focused travellers, Vietnam is quietly becoming more than street food and beaches. Between the Hanoi Opera House's season of Puccini and Verdi, Huế's festival scene and Đà Nẵng's growing arts calendar, there's real substance for anyone who wants to pair a trip with live performance. And thanks to artists like Hòa, the next generation of Vietnamese singers is getting access to international professors and orchestras — meaning the quality keeps climbing. He puts it simply: investing in culture isn't about money, it's about inspiring dreams. For visitors, that means an increasingly rich reason to book a ticket, not just a flight.