Domingo: restless in the pursuit of excellence
Plácido Domingo and I go back a long way. It is more than 38 years since I first heard him in New York singing Verdi’s doomed Spanish prince Don Carlo; Maria Callas, no less, was in the audience, too. A few months later, I was there when he made his Covent Garden debut as Cavaradossi opposite Gwyneth Jones in Puccini’s Tosca in December 1971. I was in the gods for that one. He became my operatic god. And he still is.
I can remember three things about Domingo that night: the way his tenor seemed to ride the wave of orchestral sound with such effortless amplitude in his aria in act one; his prodigiously extended cries of “Vittoria, vittoria” when the message of Napoleon’s victory is announced in act two; and that he looked the part. He always looked the hero as well as sounding like one.
Over the years I have heard Domingo many times. Most of the time he has sung Italian roles, mainly Verdi and Puccini of course, plus a couple of Giordanos. He was the best Radames, the best Gustavo and the best Don Carlo of his era and I expect to go to my grave confident that his London Otellos under the matchless Carlos Kleiber in 1980, 1987 and 1990 were the best thing I ever heard in any opera house in my life.
But Domingo was also exceptional in other repertoire, too. He has always been outstanding in French opera. His Don Jose, Samson and Werther stand out. In the second half of his career he began singing Wagner. Siegmund and Parsifal became calling cards in major opera houses while other roles, Tristan above all, were largely confined to the recording studio. There was the occasional venture into Strauss. In the last decade he added a Russian role, Herman from Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.
Not all great tenors are consumed by the constant quest for the new as Domingo. Some of the most exemplary singers of this and many other ages—from Tito Schipa to Juan Diego Flórez—have refused to step beyond quite narrow boundaries of repertoire, and been right to do so. But this search for new challenges is one of the most admirable things about Domingo. At the last count, he had sung 128 different roles, a figure unmatched by any tenor in history. He has recorded more than 100 full-length operas, made more than 50 videos, conducted several operas and, in what passes for spare time, he even runs two opera companies, in Los Angeles and Washington.
Yet there is nothing gimmicky about his restless zeal to add new roles to his roster. A safer artist, for instance, would have embarked on Tchaikovsky’s Herman in less testing and less idiomatic conditions than he did in New York a decade ago. Domingo, on the other hand, made his debut in the role surrounded by some of the most distinguished Russian singers of the day, including Olga Borodina and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and under the direction of Valery Gergiev. He is never afraid to be judged by the highest standards. It is only just over a decade since Domingo appeared at Covent Garden singing the tenor role, Gabriele Adorno, in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. But at Berlin’s Staatsoper this October and November Domingo is making his debut in the opera’s title role, singing not the lead tenor but the lead baritone part. Over the next eight months, audiences in New York, Zurich, Milan and Madrid will hear his Boccanegra, too. In June and July it will be London’s turn. It will be, by a distance, the hottest opera ticket of 2010.
Domingo is not the first singer to move his voice down a range as he has got older. Sopranos quite often retrain as mezzos as they age. The move from tenor to baritone is more unusual, however, and although the Spaniard’s copper-toned tenor has become ever darker in timbre with the years—he long ago abandoned high-lying tenor roles such as Alfredo in La Traviata—this is by far the most high-profile switch from tenor to baritone since Ramón Vinay in the 1950s—and Vinay, memorable singer-actor though he was, was never remotely as famous as Domingo. Opinion is divided about the foray. To some, Domingo’s Boccanegra is self-indulgent, proof that at 68 (officially) he doesn’t know when to retire gracefully. His critics say Boccanegra is not just any baritone role but a difficult and relatively deep-lying one, from which there can be no return to the tenor repertoire. To me, though, it is crowning proof of what has made Domingo the most consistently rewarding operatic singer of my lifetime. There has never been a singer in whom the blessings of an outstanding voice have been combined with such dauntless artistic ambition. Over 40 constantly evolving years at the top, I think Domingo has earned the right to make this latest leap. Oh and he will be singing his first ever Handel opera role in London next year, too.
Plácido Domingo and I go back a long way. It is more than 38 years since I first heard him in New York singing Verdi’s doomed Spanish prince Don Carlo; Maria Callas, no less, was in the audience, too. A few months later, I was there when he made his Covent Garden debut as Cavaradossi opposite Gwyneth Jones in Puccini’s Tosca in December 1971. I was in the gods for that one. He became my operatic god. And he still is.
I can remember three things about Domingo that night: the way his tenor seemed to ride the wave of orchestral sound with such effortless amplitude in his aria in act one; his prodigiously extended cries of “Vittoria, vittoria” when the message of Napoleon’s victory is announced in act two; and that he looked the part. He always looked the hero as well as sounding like one.
Over the years I have heard Domingo many times. Most of the time he has sung Italian roles, mainly Verdi and Puccini of course, plus a couple of Giordanos. He was the best Radames, the best Gustavo and the best Don Carlo of his era and I expect to go to my grave confident that his London Otellos under the matchless Carlos Kleiber in 1980, 1987 and 1990 were the best thing I ever heard in any opera house in my life.
But Domingo was also exceptional in other repertoire, too. He has always been outstanding in French opera. His Don Jose, Samson and Werther stand out. In the second half of his career he began singing Wagner. Siegmund and Parsifal became calling cards in major opera houses while other roles, Tristan above all, were largely confined to the recording studio. There was the occasional venture into Strauss. In the last decade he added a Russian role, Herman from Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.
Not all great tenors are consumed by the constant quest for the new as Domingo. Some of the most exemplary singers of this and many other ages—from Tito Schipa to Juan Diego Flórez—have refused to step beyond quite narrow boundaries of repertoire, and been right to do so. But this search for new challenges is one of the most admirable things about Domingo. At the last count, he had sung 128 different roles, a figure unmatched by any tenor in history. He has recorded more than 100 full-length operas, made more than 50 videos, conducted several operas and, in what passes for spare time, he even runs two opera companies, in Los Angeles and Washington.
Yet there is nothing gimmicky about his restless zeal to add new roles to his roster. A safer artist, for instance, would have embarked on Tchaikovsky’s Herman in less testing and less idiomatic conditions than he did in New York a decade ago. Domingo, on the other hand, made his debut in the role surrounded by some of the most distinguished Russian singers of the day, including Olga Borodina and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and under the direction of Valery Gergiev. He is never afraid to be judged by the highest standards. It is only just over a decade since Domingo appeared at Covent Garden singing the tenor role, Gabriele Adorno, in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. But at Berlin’s Staatsoper this October and November Domingo is making his debut in the opera’s title role, singing not the lead tenor but the lead baritone part. Over the next eight months, audiences in New York, Zurich, Milan and Madrid will hear his Boccanegra, too. In June and July it will be London’s turn. It will be, by a distance, the hottest opera ticket of 2010.
Domingo is not the first singer to move his voice down a range as he has got older. Sopranos quite often retrain as mezzos as they age. The move from tenor to baritone is more unusual, however, and although the Spaniard’s copper-toned tenor has become ever darker in timbre with the years—he long ago abandoned high-lying tenor roles such as Alfredo in La Traviata—this is by far the most high-profile switch from tenor to baritone since Ramón Vinay in the 1950s—and Vinay, memorable singer-actor though he was, was never remotely as famous as Domingo. Opinion is divided about the foray. To some, Domingo’s Boccanegra is self-indulgent, proof that at 68 (officially) he doesn’t know when to retire gracefully. His critics say Boccanegra is not just any baritone role but a difficult and relatively deep-lying one, from which there can be no return to the tenor repertoire. To me, though, it is crowning proof of what has made Domingo the most consistently rewarding operatic singer of my lifetime. There has never been a singer in whom the blessings of an outstanding voice have been combined with such dauntless artistic ambition. Over 40 constantly evolving years at the top, I think Domingo has earned the right to make this latest leap. Oh and he will be singing his first ever Handel opera role in London next year, too.
