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José Plácido Domingo Embil KBE (born January 21, 1941), better
known as Plácido Domingo, is a world-famous Spanish operatic tenor. He is known for
his versatile, strong voice that possesses a ringing and clear tone throughout its
range. In addition to his singing roles, he has also taken on conducting opera
performances as well as acting as the General Director of the Washington National
Opera in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles Opera in California.
 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 acting in a minor role 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. He made his operatic debut
acting as a leading role at Monterrey as Alfredo in La Traviata and then in 1962
spent 2 and a half years with the Israel National Opera in Tel Aviv, singing 280
performances of 12 different roles.
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.
In what has been called his 'final career move', Placido Domingo announced on
January 25, 2007 that in 2009 he would switch ranges to baritone by taking on one
of Verdi's most demanding baritone roles, as the Doge of Genoa, Simone Boccanegra,
in the opera of the same name.
Premiere
performances and breadth of roles
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 124 roles onstage
to date (and as many as 128 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.
Other
achievements
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.
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.
In 1993 he also founded Operalia, an important international competition for young
opera singers.
He is the General Director of two opera companies, the Washington National Opera
and the Los Angeles Opera. His contracts in both Los Angeles and Washington DC have
been extended through the 2010–2011 season.
Domingo has been instrumental in giving many young artists encouragement, (and
special attention) as in 2001, when he invited New York tenor, Daniel Rodriguez to
attend the Vilar/Domingo Young Artists program to further develop his operatic
skills.
Domingo supports the Hear the World initiative as an ambassador to raise awareness
for the topic of hearing and hearing loss.
Three
Tenors
Giving him even greater international recognition outside of the world of opera,
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 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama). Alone,
Domingo again made an appearance at the final of the 2006 World Cup in Berlin.
Performances
on film
See List of Domingo's opera recorded performances
Domingo has appeared in numerous opera films, among them:
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's Madama Butterfly,
Francesco Rosi's Carmen (Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording),
Gianfranco de Bosio's Tosca with Raina Kabaivanska,
Brian Large's Tosca with Catherine Malfitano (Emmy Award),
Franco Zeffirelli's Otello, Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci, and La Traviata
(with Teresa Stratas, which received a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording),
He has also appeared on television in the 1978 La Scala production of Puccini's
Manon Lescaut which marked the Scala debut of Hungarian soprano Sylvia Sass, as
well in zarzuela evenings, and Live at the Met telecasts and broadcasts.
Recordings
See List of recordings by Plácido Domingo
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 have been 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).
Amongst many television appearance in many countries over the years (a large number
for charitable purposes), Domingo appeared as the star act in the New Orleans Opera
Association's A Night For New Orleans with Frederica von Stade and Elizabeth
Futral, in March 2006. The concert was to raise funds for the rebuilding of the
city.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Placido
Domingo - Projector - Biography
