Born in Lisbon, Hugo Oliveira was a member of the Estúdio de Ópera do Porto - Casa da Música, where he took part in productions such as Benedetto Marcello's Joaz (Jojada) conducted by Richard Gwilt, Gluck's L'Ivrogne Corrige (Lucas) conducted by Jeff Cohen and Heinz-Karl Gruber's Frankenstein! conducted by Pierre-Andre Valade and, later in 2006, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by François-Xavier Roth at the Barbican Centre in London.

As part of the Concertgebouw's prestigious opera series - Zaterdagmatinée NPS - he performed Catalani's La Wally (Pedone) and Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila (2e. Philistin), both conducted by Giuliano Carella, and R. Wagner's Lohengrin (Dritte Edler), conducted by Jaap van Zweden.

At the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Hugo Oliveira played the lead in Oscar Strasnoy's opera Un Retour.

He also performed The Marriage of Figaro (Figaro) at the Coliseu do Porto, under the direction of Young-min Park, Les malheurs d'Orphée by D. Milhaud (Orphée) with the Ebony Band in Paris (Cité la Musique), Melodias Estranhas by António Chagas Rosa (Strange Melodies) with Stefan Asbury, Paint me (Howard) by António Chagas Rosa and Milhaud (Orphée) with Ebony Band in Paris (Cité de la Musique), Melodias Estranhas by António Chagas Rosa with Stefan Asbury, Paint me (Howard) by Luís Tinoco directed by Joana Carneiro, L'enfant et les Sortilèges (Fauteuil) conducted by Wayne Marshall at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Purcell's Dido and Eneas (Eneas), John Blow's Venus and Adonis (Adonis), Destouches' Le Carnaval et La Folie (Momus) with Os Músicos do Tejo (Marcos Magalhães) and Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo with AKAMUS (Rene Jacobs) at the Staatsoper Berlin. Hugo Oliveira has also sung Monteverdi's Orfeo (Plutone) with Divino Sospiro (Enrico Onofri) and, as Charon, with the French ensemble Akadêmia (Françoise Lasserre) in Delhi and Paris.

His vast repertoire also extends to oratorio, with works such as Mozart's Requiem with the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Michel Corboz), Mozart's Mass in C minor in France with ONLP (Sascha Goetzel), Liszt's Die Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth (Gennadi Rozhdestvensky), Brahms' Requiem (Marcus Creed), Handel's Solomon (Paul McCreesh), Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella (Martin Andrè), Stravinsky's Les Noces (Rob Vermeulen) and Gubaidulina's Jetzt immer Schnee with the Asko Schönberg Ensemble (Reinbert de Leeuw).

Hugo Oliveira has been internationally recognised for his interpretation of the Bachiano repertoire with conductors such as Ton Koopman, Franz Bruggen, Peter Dijkstra, Klaas Stok, Paul Dombrecht, Peter van Heyghen and Vaclav Luks.

Hugo Oliveira has also worked with Jordi Saval (Les Concert des Nations), Bruno Weil (Wallfisch Band), Gabriel Garrido (Ensemble Elyma), Andrzej Kosendiak (Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra), Keneth Weiss, Nigel North, Lawrence Cummings, Christophe Rousset.