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José Carreras will bow out of opera
Amar Singh8 May 2009
Jose Carreras, who alongside Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo formed the Three Tenors, has announced his reitrement from opera.
The 62-year-old Spaniard said he could no longer meet the gruelling demands of an opera career, after more than four decades of performing.
He said today: "If I can do concert recitals, adapting the repertoire to my needs then no problem, that's good enough. But with operas, unless the right circumstances come up, my career is done."
Carreras will perform in concert with Faryl Smith at the Hampton Court Festival on 2 June but his decision leaves 71-year-old Domingo as the only member of the trio to remain on the opera scene. Pavarotti died of pancreatic cancer in September 2007.
Next Thursday Carerras will receive a lifetime achievement awards at the Classical BRITs.
During the past 20 years he has won fans not just for his performing but also for his bravery in fighting cancer. In 1987, he was found to have acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and was given a one in 10 chance of beating it. He survived and set up the Carreras Foundation for the Fight Against Leukaemia.
Carreras went on to join Pavarotti and Domingo to perform at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome on the eve of the 1990 World Cup final in Italy. The concert was beamed into millions of homes across the world and a lucrative global tour soon followed. He recalled: "Without being presumptuous, we were the most popular tenors of the day."
But the trio upset opera purists who felt they had over-commercialised the art form.
Reader views (1)
The opera snobs need to pull their heads out into the sunlight - opera isn't for them alone.
- Rogan, Irving, 08/05/2009 13:25
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