He made his stage debut in 1912 at the Liceo in Barcelona as a comprimario singer, but he gradually worked his way up to major roles at a variety of opera houses in Spain and South America, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
On the South American tour of 1917, the young tenor was befriended by the Metropolitan Opera star Enrico Caruso, who encouraged him to pursue his singing career in New York City.
He appeared often on the Italian opera-house circuit during the early 1930s but success at Milan's La Scala, with its entrenched roster of popular Italian-born tenors, eluded him.
He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni.
They consist of pieces by Gounod, Meyerbeer, Massenet, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Giordano and Mascagni, and by Spanish composers such as Gaztambide, Vives and Serrano.