Plácido Domingo: 1941—: Opera Singer, Conductor, Administrator
The Three Tenors
United by their common love of soccer, Domingo, Pavarotti, and Spanish tenor José Carreras joined forces for a "Three Tenors" performance at the 1990 World Cup soccer championship in Rome, Italy. The Three Tenors were a blockbuster success, with CD and video releases of the World Cup concerts topping sales charts worldwide. The 1994 concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (Three Tenors concerts were held every four years in conjunction with the World Cup) was viewed on television by an estimated 1.3 billion people, the all-time largest audience for classical music and one of the most successful televised events of any kind.
Domingo slowed down only slightly in the late 1990s and the first years of the 21st century. He added yet another facet to his all-around participation in musical events when he was named artistic director of the Washington (D.C.) Opera in 1996, and he worked to cultivate the careers of his own successors when he established a competition for young singers in 1992. In the year 2000 he received a Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C. Opera publications around the turn of the century recognized that it would be very difficult to find a successor for this vocally towering, dramatically gifted, and physically compelling singer. Many consider him to have reached the pinnacle of operatic artistry in the late twentieth century.
Selected discography
Romantic Arias, RCA, 1969.
Domingo Conducts Milnes! Milnes Conducts Domingo!, RCA, 1972.
Carmen, London, 1975.
Carmen (soundtrack), RCA, 1984.
Otello, RCA, 1978.
Perhaps Love, CBS, 1981.
Tangos, Pansera/DG, 1981.
Requiem (Andrew Lloyd Webber), Angel, 1985.
Nights at the Opera, CBS, 1986.
Be My Love … An Album of Love, Angel, 1991.
The Broadway I Love, Atlantic, 1991.
(With Paloma San Basilio) Por Fin Juntos, Capitol/EMI Latin, 1991.
Canta Para Todos, Capitol/EMI Latin, 1991; reis-sued, Polygram Latino, 1993.
(With Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras) Domingo, Pavarotti, Carreras in Concert With Mehta, Mobile Fidelity, 1993.
De Mi Alma Latina, Angel, 1994.
Granada: The Greatest Hits of Placido Domingo, Deutsche Grammophon, 1994.
(With Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras) The Three Tenors: Paris 1994, Atlantic, 1994.
(With Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras) The Three Tenors: Live 1998, Atlantic, 1998.
(With Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras) Romantic Tenors, Atlantic, 2002.
Sources
Books
Contemporary Musicians, volume 20, Gale, 1997.
Dictionary of Hispanic Biography, Gale, 1996.
International Dictionary of Opera, St. James, 1993.
Slonimsky, Nicolas, et al., eds., Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Schirmer, 2000.
Periodicals
Billboard, November 10, 2001, p. 22.
Opera News, September 13, 1993, p. 8; March 16, 1996, p. 8; July 1997, p. 12; November 1997, p. 71; September 1998, p. 24.
Time, December 28, 1998, p. 180.
—James M. Manheim
Additional topics
- Plácido Domingo: 1941—: Opera Singer, Conductor, Administrator - Has Memorized Over 30 Roles
- Other Free Encyclopedias
Brief BiographiesBiographies: Craig David Biography - Became Teenage MC to Herman Edwards BiographyPlácido Domingo: 1941—: Opera Singer, Conductor, Administrator Biography - Talented Soccer Goalie, Has Memorized Over 30 Roles, The Three Tenors