Plácido Domingo

José Plácido Domingo Embil [ plaθiðo Domingo ], KBE ( born January 21, 1941 in Madrid) is a world-famous Spanish opera singer (tenor ) and conductor. He was next to José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti in the Three Tenors. Since the darkening of his voice he sings increasingly baritone roles.

Life

Plácido Domingo was born as the son of two Zarzuelasänger and spent his childhood in 1949 in Mexico. He made his debut in 1959 in a small role ( Borsa in Rigoletto in Mexico City) and on 19 May 1961 as Alfredo in La Traviata ( Monterrey, Mexico). From 1962 to 1965 he was with his wife Marta Ornelas, born 1935, (Soprano) in Tel Aviv ( Israel) worked before his actual international career with a successful appearance began in 1966 at the New York City Opera in Alberto Ginastera's Don Rodrigo.

Since then he has performed at all major opera houses and fixed play in the world:

• Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona ( debut January 1, 1966 )
• Hamburg State Opera ( debut January 8, 1967 )
• Vienna State Opera ( debut May 19, 1967 )
• German Opera Berlin ( debut May 31, 1967 )
• Metropolitan Opera, New York ( debut September 28, 1968 )
• Lyric Opera of Chicago ( debut December 6, 1968 )
• Arena of Verona ( debut July 16, 1969 )
• San Francisco Opera ( debut November 15, 1969 )
• La Scala ( debut December 7, 1969 )
• Covent Garden, London ( debut December 8, 1971 )
• Bavarian State Opera, Munich ( debut January 22, 1972 )
• Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires ( debut July 14, 1972 )
• Paris Opera ( debut May 20, 1973 )
• Salzburg Festival ( debut 11 August 1975 )
• Los Angeles Opera ( debut at the opening of this company of October 7, 1986)
• Washington National Opera ( debut November 15, 1986 )
• Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg ( debut February 12, 1992 )
• Richard Wagner Festival, Bayreuth ( debut August 17, 1992 )
• Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin ( debut November 27, 1993 )
• Teatro Real, Madrid ( Debut October 18, 1997 )
• Royal Opera, Copenhagen ( debut 7 April 2006)

Domingo is one of the most versatile tenors and has been sung 134 different roles. The focus of his broad repertoire is the Italian and French trade with operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet, Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and others. One of his great and famous famous roles is the Otello ( in the eponymous opera by Verdi ), which was recorded several times on LP and made ​​into a film by Franco Zeffirelli with him. In addition, he has also been profiled as a Wagner singer, especially as Lohengrin, Siegmund ( in Die Walküre ) and as Parsifal. He also sings in Russian ( Gherman in The Queen of Spades ), and has the world premieres of operas Goya ( Gian Carlo Menotti ), El Poeta ( Federico Moreno Torroba of ), Divina palabras ( Antón García Abril of ) and Nicholas and Alexandra ( by Deborah Drattell ) participated. Until very recently, it is always new roles: he has, for example, in 2005 new Franco Alfano Cyrano de Bergerac rehearsed at the Met and recorded Wagner's Tristan und Isolde on CD. In December 2006 and January 2007, he sang the title role in the premiere of the latest opera by Tan Dun, The First Emperor at the Met

For quite some time singing Domingo also baritone roles, as in 1992 as Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia under Claudio Abbado, more recently Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (2007), Germont (La Traviata ), or the title roles in Nabucco and Rigoletto. 2013 he played the role of Count di Luna in Verdi's Il Trovatore at the Berlin State Opera.

Since the nineties ( for the first time on the occasion of the Football World Cup 1990 ) he was with José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti ( The Three Tenors ) repeated and performed with success in large arenas.

Domingo is also general director of Opera in Washington, DC, and the Los Angeles Opera. He is increasingly active as a conductor, such as at the Met, Covent Garden, at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Vienna State Opera and the Theater an der Wien.

In 1993 he founded Operalia, a competition for young opera singers, which is performed annually since then in various cities in the world (so far in Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, Bordeaux, Tokyo, Hamburg, San Juan, Los Angeles, Washington, Valencia, as well as in tri-national region around Lake Constance ).

Plácido Domingo is also known for its many charitable events and actions. So he founded after the great earthquake in Mexico City, in which he lost his own family members, a children's village for orphans of the earthquake. For a year, he said almost from all obligations to the great opera stages and were only benefit concerts, which raised the orphans and other aid projects in Mexico. Again and again he supports aid projects around the world, especially those of disadvantaged groups take care (children, disabled, etc. ).

In November 2006, he was - appointed by the Swiss hearing aid company Phonak for " Ambassador of hearing " - together with the Vienna Philharmonic. It supports a global campaign " Hear the World " for hearing protection and help for the hearing impaired.

Since June 7, 2011 Domingo is jointly owned with the world footballers Pele and Johan Cruyff and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former chairman of the FBI Louis Freeh to resolve Commission of FIFA.

Domingo is also sustainable for the excavation works of a little known, in which he himself appears. So at the Theater an der Wien in a zarzuela, a world premiere and a little played opera in the middle period of Verdi, I due Foscari.

Honors and Awards

Domingo received several high honors, such as Prince of Asturias Award (Spain, 1991), Kennedy Center Honoree (USA, 2000), Honorary Knighthood ( UK, 2002), Commandeur de la Legion d' Honneur (France, 2002), Presidential Medal of Freedom ( USA, 2002), World Award in the category World Achievement Award (2003), Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First class, etc., and honorary doctorates from the Royal Northern College of Music (England, 1982), the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts (USA, 1982), the Oklahoma City University (USA, 1984), the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain, 1989), the University of New York ( USA, 1990), Georgetown University ( USA, 1992), the Washington College of Chestertown (USA, 2000), the Universidad Anáhuac (Mexico, 2001), the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy, Warsaw (Poland, 2003) and the University of Oxford (England, 2003), Classical Brit Award ( England, May 2006, published in 2006 for his recording studio Tristan und Isolde and his life's work ) and the Great Silver Medal of the Republic of Austria (2007) and the Gold Medal for Service to the City of Vienna. He is Bavarian (2005) and Austrian opera singer. He is also an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera and support their ring of honor (2012 ) and the Ring of Honour City of Vienna ( 1994). A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame also bears his name. In 2008, he received a Bambi, and in 2009 he was awarded first with the doped with a million dollars Birgit Nilsson Prize. Also in 2009, he received in Dresden's Semperoper the ECHO Klassik prize for his life's work. In November 2010 he won the Latin Grammy Award " Person of the Year " for his "professional and philanthropic achievements ." In 2013 he was honored with Japan's Praemium Imperiale.

Trivia

A doll from Sesame Street called Placido Flamingo ( the English documentation " Blaffido Flamingo" ) was named after the opera singer and projecting itself accordingly as cocky opera star. Domingo himself appeared as a guest on a duet with the doll.