In 1992, he made his debut at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden as Riccardo in Bellini's I puritani. In Italy, he made his debut at La Fenice as Eugene Onegin, a success that sealed his reputation, and made his American operatic debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1993) in La traviata. His operatic debut in the West was at the Nice Opera in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades (1989). His performance included Handel's ' Ombra mai fu' and 'Per me giunto.O Carlo ascolta' from Verdi's Don Carlos. Hvorostovsky came to international prominence in 1989 when he won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, beating local favourite Bryn Terfel in the final round.

His father, an engineer, and his mother, a gynecologist, both had extremely time-consuming careers and were often only around on the weekends and holidays. An only child, he was raised mostly by his grandmother and a grandfather who, according to Dmitri, was a war veteran suffering from alcoholism. Hvorostovsky was born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia during a time when the city was mostly closed to foreigners.

Youtube met opera free streaming