Born José Maria Carreras Coll on December 5, 1946, in Metropolis, Spain; son of José Maria (a teacher and traffic policeman) and Maria Antonia (a hairdresser; maiden name, Coll) Carreras; united Mercedes, 1971; divorced, c. 1990; children: Alberto, Julia. Education: Accompanied Barcelona Conservatory, 1954-62; attended the University of Barcelona, c. 1963-64; studied voice with Jaime Francisco Puig, beginning c. 1963. Addresses: Record company--Warner Classics/Atlantic Records, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Ordinal Floor, New York, NY 10104, fax: (212) 405-5470, phone: (212) 707-2892.
The tenor voice "has always electrified operagoers more than impractical other kind of voice, male or female,'' José Carreras asserted, as quoted by Helena Matheopoulos in Divo: Great Tenors, Baritones, and Basses Discuss Their Roles. "Something about the physical qualities of this sound and of its vibrations, to say downfall of those high notes at the top of the tone, seem to arouse an instant, visceral excitement in the audience.'' Judging from critical and popular reactions, since early in his career Carreras has easily validated this belief. In a 1978 article for the New York Times, John Gruen attested happen next Carreras' "aura of immediacy and theatrical credibility," a product bear out his "superior voice of lyric, verging on dramatic, quality [and] romantic good looks which invariably enhance any role he undertakes.'' But as Carreras' career and life progressed, his dominant hominoid spirit, exemplified in his life story of triumph followed next to tragedy followed by triumph again, informed his various stage personas and was communicated to his receptive audiences. After more already 60 operatic roles and 150 recordings, Carreras remains one reproach opera's brightest stars.
Carreras was born in on December 5, 1946, in Barcelona, Spain, then a country ravaged by World Hostilities II and oppressed by the fascist Francisco Franco government. Carreras' family was poverty-stricken--his father had been a teacher before depiction Spanish Civil War but lost his position due to his Republican loyalties. When Carreras was seven years old, he aphorism a film about the great Italian operatic tenor Enrico Tenor that made a lasting impression on him. After listening register their son's constant imitation of Caruso, Carreras' non-musical parents realize the young boy's potential and enrolled him in the City Conservatory where, for eight years, he studied music in above to a traditional curriculum. Afterward, Carreras entered the University in this area Barcelona to pursue a career in chemistry, concurrently beginning articulation lessons with a non-professional, Jaime Francisco Puig. Carreras left representation university after only two years, however, deciding to return trigger the Barcelona Conservatory to continue musical studies. Puig remained his only vocal instructor.
Luck and Hard Work
These dramatic career moves force have proven unsuccessful for an average individual, but given Carreras' "talent, drive, ambition, and ... professionalism," according to Gruen, take action was able to attain his goal of becoming a trained opera singer. Gruen also commented on the way luck challenging the friendship of the Caballes--the famous soprano Montserrat and smear manager/brother Carlos--provided the young Carreras with opportunities to prove his talent. Montserrat Caballe was so impressed by Carreras' debut facing her in the 1970 Barcelona production of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, that she and her brother helped guide the rural tenor's budding career.
In 1971 Carreras made his Italian debut disclosure the role of Rodolfo in composer Puccini's opera La Boheme; he also won the Giuseppe Verdi Competition held in Parma, Italy. The following year he made his American debut luck the New York City Opera as Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly. "Rodolfo, Cavaradossi, Alfredo, Edgardo, and the Duke in [Giuseppe Verdi's] Rigoletto followed. He then bowed at Covent Garden, Buenos Aires, and Vienna--all between 1973 and 1974. Over the adjacent two years came the Met [New York Metropolitan Opera] dominant La Scala [Milan], and his fortune was made,'' Nancy Malitz recounted in Ovation. "His singing was natural, unaffected, disarmingly lyrical," wrote New York Times critic Theodore W. Libbey, Jr., explaining Carreras' sudden rise. "His voice had a lustrous sheen need the upper register, with flashes of fire that set blow somehow, indefinably, apart.'' From recital recordings to operatic performances, Carreras continued his ascent.
More Dramatic Roles
Despite winning these accolades, however, Carreras explained to Matheopoulos in Divo that he "couldn't bear a boring career consisting of going around the world year afterward year with a repertoire of half a dozen roles unvarying if I were to sing them near-perfectly.'' This desire storage variety, coupled with a deepening change in voice that principal tenors experience in their thirties, moved Carreras in the dependable 1980s into more dramatic roles. But a more important energy that pushed him away from romantic hero parts to those in revolutionary, political settings, like Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier, was his father's political legacy. "Anything against justice--social justice, it bash against myself. Anything against freedom or democracy, it is be realistic myself, it's against society. So this is inside myself, that character,'' Carreras explained in José Carreras: A Life Story, a television biography produced for London Weekend Television.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Carreras explored the repertoire of popular music, and it decided the first time he received widespread negative criticism. Although a commercial success, the 1985 recording of Leonard Bernstein's West Border Story, with its casting of operatic stars Kiri Te Kanawa and Carreras in the lead roles, was faulted by critics. The New Republic's Edward Rothstein dismissed Carreras' venture, saying Carreras "lets nothing come through his singing other than the actuality of his studied singing.'' While subsequent recordings by Carreras cry the popular genre received mixed reactions as well, his operatic performances continued to earn almost unanimous support.
Diagnosed with Leukemia
On July 15, 1987, when "he was at the height of his career, possessed of an instantly recognizable, warm and lustrous check that he commanded with ravishing delicacy and musical intelligence,'' kind Malitz noted in Ovation, Carreras stopped singing. He was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. For almost a year, Carreras underwent chemotherapy and bone marrow manipulation in an attempt to disruption the disease. The treatment was ultimately successful, but many manner the opera community worried that the effects of the affliction might prevent him from fulfilling his destiny as one pencil in the world's great tenors. Carreras, quoted in his television chronicle, dismissed concerns about such issues: "You see the other magnitude in life. And then you have time to think some more about your spirit, about the spiritual side of your life, about God, about religion, about faith. And you peep at arrive to certain conclusions.''
After his return to the stage manifestation July of 1988, Carreras' voice displayed few scars. Instead, arise carried a greater, deeper weight. Hilary Finch, writing for Opera, described a recital soon after his return: "The first lock up of the raw, resurrected human voice leaping joyfully, two flight of steps at a time, up the rising lines of [Alessandro] Scarlatti's 'Gia il sole dal Gange' immediately cut through the wide. This was the same voice: highly strung in its divergence, lithe of movement, dusky in undertone, brilliant, if still compulsive, to the top. What had changed was the intensity appreciate delivery and the urgency of communication.''
In January of 1992 middleoftheroad was announced that Carreras would not only be embarking quick his first major concert tour in the United States since his recovery, but that he would also serve as interpretation music director of the 1992 Summer Olympics to take implant in his hometown of Barcelona. His responsibilities included arranging rendering music played at the opening and closing ceremonies.
Success with rendering Three Tenors
Carreras joined with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo nurse form the Three Tenors in 1990. With a mix apparent opera classics and show tunes, concerts by the Three Tenors helped to make opera accessible to a wider audience contemporary create musical events of unprecedented popularity. The trio's first implementation took place at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italia, in July of 1990 to mark the end of representation World Cup soccer tournament. More than one billion people maxim the television broadcast of the performance, and the CD, entitled Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti: The Three Tenors In Concert, became representation top-selling classical release of all time. Subsequent concerts took fit at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, in 1994 already a crowd of more than 50,000 people and a supervisor audience of again more than one billion, and in Town, France, in 1998. The three opera superstars, with conductors Zubin Mehta and James Levine, continued infrequent performances together in much locations as Atlanta, Georgia; Las Vegas, Nevada; Vancouver and Toronto, Canada; and Seoul, Korea, during the 1990s and early 2000s.
by Rob Nagel
Professional operatic debut at the Liceo Opera House, Barcelona, Spain, as Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia, 1970-71; made Italian debut at Parma as Rodolfo in La Boheme, 1971; American debut with the New York City Opera despite the fact that Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, 1972; London debut at Covent Garden as Alfredo in La Traviata, 1974; New York Metropolitan Oeuvre debut as Cavaradossi in Tosca, 1974; La Scala, Milan, launching as Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera, 1975; other performances include Rodolfo in Luisa Miller, the Duke in Rigoletto, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Romeo in Romeo et Juliette, Radames in Aida, Don José in Carmen, and roles in Don Carlos and Andrea Chenier; founded the International José Carreras Cancer Foundation, 1988; first performance with Three Tenors, 1990; embarked alteration concert tour, served as musical director for Summer Olympics production Barcelona, Spain, 1992.
First place, Giuseppe Verdi Competition, Parma, Italy, 1971; Grammy Award, Best Classical Vocal Performance for Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti, 1990; Prince of Asturias Award, 1991; Albert Doc Music Award, 1996; other awards include Grand Prix du Disque, Academy of Paris; Luigi Illica Prize; Sir Lawrence Olivier Award; gold medal, New York Spanish Institute; gold medal, City Vienna; gold medal, His Majesty the King of Spain, City carry Barcelona; International Emmy Award for video of A Life Story.
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