Plácido Domingo

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Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo As it is the practice in Spain, Plácido Domingo's full name reads José Plácido Domingo Embil but this article uses the usual name as who he is known internationally. (born January 21, 1941) His birthdate has sometimes incorrectly been given as 1934. This arose from a comment by Giacomo Lauri-Volpi in 1971 who on hearing him in La forza del destino said that "no one could sing Alvaro like that at 30 years old." This was shown by the author Daniel Snowman to be an erroneous assumption on obtaining Domingo's birth certificate from the Madrid authorities. (see [Plácido Domingo - My Operatic Roles, Helena Matheopoulos]) is a world-famous Spanish operatic tenor, well-known for his versatile, strong voice that is possessed of a ringing and clear tone throughout its range.

Biography and career

Plácido Domingo was born in Madrid, Spain, and moved to Mexico at age 8 with his family, who ran a zarzuela company. In Mexico City he studied music at the National Conservatory. He provided backup vocals for Los Black Jeans in 1958, a rock-and-roll band lead by César Costa. He learned piano and conducting, but made his stage debut in 1959 (May 12) at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara as Pascual in Marina. It was followed by Borsa in Rigoletto, Padre Confessor (Le dialogue des Carmelites) and others. In 1962 he joined the Israeli National Opera in Tel Aviv, where he spent two and a half years, singing 280 performances.

In 1966, he sang the title role in the US premiere of Ginastera's Don Rodrigo at the New York City Opera, with much acclaim. He first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on September 28, 1968, in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, singing with Renata Tebaldi. (Since then, he has opened the season there 21 times, surpassing the previous record of Enrico Caruso by four.) He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1967, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1968, at both La Scala and San Francisco Opera in 1969, and at Covent Garden in 1971, and has now sung at practically every other important opera house and festival worldwide.

Perhaps the most versatile of all living tenors, Domingo has sung 92 roles onstage to date (and as many as 122 roles when also counting recorded roles), ranging from Mozart to Ginastera. His main repertoire however is Italian (Otello, Il Trovatore, Don Carlo), French (Faust, Werther, Don José in Carmen, Samson in Samson et Dalila), and German (Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Siegmund in Die Walküre). He continues to add more operas to his repertoire, such as recently Franco Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac at the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House in London.

Throughout the years, Domingo has also turned his hand to conducting opera (as early as La Traviata on October 7, 1973, at New York City Opera) as well as, occasionally, symphonic orchestras.

He is the general director of two opera companies, the Washington National Opera and the Los Angeles Opera. (Though he expressed an interest in taking on the same role, held by Joseph Volpe, at the New York Met, that job goes to Peter Gelb in 2006.) His contracts in both LA and Washington DC have been extended through the 2010–2011 season.

He also founded [Operalia], a yearly international competition for gifted young opera singers, in 1993.

In 1981 Domingo gained considerable recognition outside of the opera world when he recorded the song Perhaps Love as a duet with the late American country/folk music singer John Denver. In 1987, he and Denver joined Julie Andrews for an Emmy Award winning holiday television special, The Sound of Christmas, filmed in Salzburg, Austria.

With José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, he participated in The Three Tenors concert at the opening of the 1990 World Cup in Rome. The event was originally conceived to raise money for the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation and was later repeated a number of times, including at the three subsequent World Cup finals (1994 Los Angeles, 1998 Paris, 2002 Yokohama). Domingo, alone now, again made an appearance at the final of the 2006 World Cup in Berlin.

On September 19, 1985, the biggest earthquake in Mexico's history devastated the whole Mexican capital. Domingo's aunt, uncle, his nephew and his nephew’s young son were killed in the collapse of the Nuevo León apartment block in the Tlatelolco housing complex. Domingo himself labored to rescue survivors. During the next year, he did benefit concerts for the victims and released an album of one of the events.

Domingo has appeared in six opera films: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's Madama Butterfly, Francesco Rosi's Carmen (Grammy Awarded), Gianfranco de Bosio's Tosca as well as Franco Zeffirelli's Otello, Cav & Pag, and La Traviata (with Teresa Stratas, Grammy Awarded), and also in numerous operatic videos. He has appeared on television, both in zarzuela evenings, and Live at the Met telecasts and broadcasts.

He has made well over 100 recordings, most of which are full-length operas, often recording the same role more than once. Among these recordings is a boxed set of every tenor aria Verdi ever wrote, including several rarely-performed versions, in different languages from the original operas, which Verdi wrote for specific performances.

In August 2005 EMI Classics released a [new studio recording] of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in which Domingo sings the title role of Tristan. A review of this recording, headlined "Vocal perfections", that appeared in the August 8, 2005 issue of The Economist begins with the word "Monumental" and ends with the words, "a musical lyricism and a sexual passion that make the cost and the effort entirely worthwhile". It characterized his July 2005 performance of Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre at Covent Garden as "unforgettable" and "luminous". The review also remarks that Domingo is still taking on roles that he has not previously performed.

New recordings that are being released in the first half of 2006 include studio recordings of Puccini's Edgar, Isaac Albéniz's Pepita Jiménez, as well as a selection of Italian and Neapolitan songs, titled Italia ti amo (all three with Deutsche Grammophon).

In March 2006 Domingo appeared as the star act in the New Orleans Opera Company's A Night For New Orleans with Frederica von Stade. The concert was to raise funds for the rebuilding of the city and was well received by the audience.

Domingo has received numerous honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors (2000), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2002), the Prince of Asturias Award (1991), the Ella Award (2002), the Order of the British Empire (2002), Commander of the French Légion d'honneur (2002), two Classical Brit Awards (2006), and honorary doctorates of the Royal Northern College of Music (1982), Philadelphia College of Performing Arts (1982), Oklahoma City University (1984), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1989), New York University (1990), Georgetown University (1992), Washington College in Chestertown (2000), Anáhuac University in Mexico (2001), Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw (2003), and Oxford University (2003). Since 1993, he also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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External links

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