The Italian-Argentinean mezzo-soprano Nidia Palacios was born in Buenos Aires where she attended the Music Academy Carlos L.Buchardo and later the Academy of Teatro Colón. She later studied at the Music Academy in Karlsruhe with Maria Venuti.

She made her début in Argentina singing the traditional Mozart and Rossini repertoire. A winner in the 1989 Nuevas Voces Liricas competition, she made her European début in Prague. She has since appeared in most of the important theatres and with the leading orchestras of Europe. In 1993 she became a resident artist at the Kassel Staatstheater, with a series of leading rôles, and invitations to sing also in Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, Staatsoper Munich, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Dresden and Cologne. In May 1995 she had her début as Carmen at the Bolshoy Opera in Minsk, singing the same rôle one month later in Hamburg to great acclaim.

In 1997 she won the Concorso Internazionale Giuseppe di Stefano in Trapani and was cast to sing Cenerentola and Adalgisa in Norma.  She was a resident artist at the Frankfurt Opera from 2000 until 2005, where she was heard in such rôles as Dorabella, Poppea, Fenena, Hänsel, Ariodante and Angelina. Her career has brought performances throughout Europe and as far afield as Japan.