José Carreras

Josep Maria Carreras Coll (; born 5 December 1946), better known as José Carreras (, ), is a Spanish operatic tenor who is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini.

Born in Barcelona, he made his debut on the operatic stage at 11 as Trujamán in Manuel de Falla's ''El retablo de Maese Pedro'', and went on to a career that encompassed over 60 roles, performing in the world's leading opera houses and on numerous recordings. He gained fame with a wider audience as one of the Three Tenors, with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, in a series of large concerts from 1990 to 2003. He is also known for his humanitarian work as president of the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation (La Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras per a la Lluita contra la Leucèmia), which he established following his own recovery from the disease in 1988.

Life and career

Early years

Carreras was born in Sants, a working-class district in Barcelona. He was the youngest of Antònia Coll i Saigi and Josep Carreras i Soler's three children. In 1951, his family emigrated to Argentina in search of a better life. However, this move abroad proved unsuccessful, and within a year they had returned to Sants where Carreras was to spend the rest of his childhood and teenage years.

He showed an early talent for music and particularly singing, which intensified at the age of six when he saw Mario Lanza in ''The Great Caruso''. The story recounted in his autobiography and numerous interviews is that after seeing the film, Carreras sang the arias incessantly to his family, especially "La donna è mobile", often locking himself in the family's bathroom when they became exasperated with his impromptu concerts. At that point, his parents, with the encouragement of his grandfather Salvador Coll, an amateur baritone, found the money for music lessons for him. At first he studied piano and voice with Magda Prunera, the mother of one of his childhood friends, and at the age of eight, he also started taking music lessons at Barcelona's Municipal Conservatory.

At just eight years old, he also gave his first public performance, singing "La donna è mobile", accompanied by Magda Prunera on the piano, on Spanish National Radio. A recording of this still exists and can be heard on the video biography, ''José Carreras – A Life Story''. On 3 January 1958, at the age of eleven, he made his debut in Barcelona's great opera house, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, singing the boy soprano role of Trujamán in Manuel de Falla's ''El retablo de Maese Pedro''. A few months later, he sang for the last time as a boy soprano at the Liceu in the second act of ''La Bohème''.

Throughout his teenage years, he continued to study music, moving on to the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu and taking private voice lessons, first with Francisco Puig and later with Juan Ruax, whom Carreras has described as his "artistic father". Following the advice of his father and brother, who felt that he needed a "backup" career, he also entered the University of Barcelona to study chemistry, but after two years he left the university to concentrate on singing.

1970s and 1980s

Juan Ruax encouraged Carreras to audition for what was to become his first tenor role at the Liceu, Flavio in ''Norma'', which opened on 8 January 1970. Although only a minor role, the few phrases he sang caught the attention of the production's leading lady, the eminent soprano and fellow Catalan, Montserrat Caballé. She asked him to sing Gennaro with her in Donizetti's ''Lucrezia Borgia'', which opened on 19 December 1970. It was his first principal adult role, and the one which he considers to be his true debut as a tenor. In 1971, he made his international debut in a concert performance of ''Maria Stuarda'' in London's Royal Festival Hall, again with Caballé singing the title role. Caballé was instrumental in promoting and encouraging his career for many years, appearing in over fifteen different operas with him, while her brother and manager, Carlos Caballé, was also Carreras's manager until the mid-1990s.

During the 1970s Carreras's career progressed rapidly. In late-1971, he won first prize in Parma's prestigious Voci Verdiane competition which led to his Italian debut as Rodolfo in ''La bohème'' at the Teatro Regio di Parma on 12 January 1972. Later that year he made his American debut as Pinkerton in ''Madama Butterfly'' with the New York City Opera. Other major house debuts followed – the San Francisco Opera in 1973, as Rodolfo; the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company in 1973, as Alfredo in ''La traviata''; the Vienna Staatsoper in 1974, as the Duke of Mantua in ''Rigoletto''; London's Royal Opera House in 1974, as Alfredo; the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1974, as Cavaradossi in ''Tosca''; and La Scala, Milan in 1975, as Riccardo in ''Un ballo in maschera''. By the age of 28, he had already sung the tenor lead in 24 different operas in both Europe and North America, and had an exclusive recording contract with Philips, which resulted in valuable recordings of several less often performed Verdi operas, notably ''Il Corsaro'', '' I due Foscari'', ''La battaglia di Legnano'', ''Un giorno di regno'' and ''Stiffelio''.

Carreras's leading ladies during the 1970s and 1980s included some of the most famous sopranos and mezzo-sopranos of the day: Montserrat Caballé, Birgit Nilsson, Viorica Cortez, Renata Scotto, Ileana Cotrubaş, Sylvia Sass, Teresa Stratas, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Frederica von Stade, Agnes Baltsa, Teresa Berganza, and Katia Ricciarelli. His artistic partnership with Ricciarelli began when they both sang in the 1972 ''La bohème'' at Parma and lasted for thirteen years, both in the recording studio and on stage. They later made a studio recording of ''La bohème'' for Philips Classics and can be heard together on over 12 other commercial recordings of both operas and recitals, predominantly on the Philips and Deutsche Grammophon labels.

Of the many conductors he worked with during this period, the one with whom Carreras had the closest artistic relationship and who had the most profound influence on his career was Herbert von Karajan. He first sang under Karajan in the Verdi Requiem at Salzburg on 10 April 1976, with their final collaboration in a 1986 production of ''Carmen'', again at Salzburg. With Karajan's encouragement, he increasingly moved towards singing heavier lirico-spinto roles, including ''Aida'', ''Don Carlos'', and ''Carmen'', which some critics have said were too heavy for his natural voice and may have shortened his vocal prime. (See the section on Carreras's voice.)

The 1980s saw Carreras occasionally moving outside the strictly operatic repertoire, at least in the recording studio, with recitals of songs from zarzuela, musicals and operettas. He also made full-length recordings of two musicals – ''West Side Story'' (1985) and '' South Pacific'' (1986) – both with Kiri Te Kanawa as his co-star. The recording of ''West Side Story'' was unusual in two respects: Carreras was chosen and conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein was conducting for the first time nearly 30 years after he composed the music, and a full-length documentary was made about the recording sessions. His 1987 Philips recording of the Argentine folk mass, ''Misa Criolla'', conducted by its composer, Ariel Ramírez, brought the work to a worldwide audience. Although many of Carreras's stage performances are available on video, he also ventured into film. In 1986, he portrayed the 19th century Spanish tenor Julián Gayarre in ''Romanza Final'' (The Final Romance) and in 1987, he started working on a film version of ''La bohème'' directed by Luigi Comencini