Great Performers: José Carreras
He will always be remembered for being the "glue" that brought - and held - the Three Tenors together, but José Carreras deserves his place in modern operatic history for his elegant lyric tenor voice. Long before the great stadiums of the world resounded to the delights of operatic arias and show tunes, Carreras had already won thousands of hearts for his wonderfully natural and appealing stage presence.
Read more…Born, like his frequent operatic partner Montserrat Caballé, in Barcelona, Carreras made his stage debut aged 11 at the Teatro del Liceu while still a boy soprano (in Falla's 'El retablo de Maese Pedro'), but his mature debut came in 1970, and his reputation consolidated during the remarkable year 1974 when he appeared for the first time on the stages of Covent Garden, the Met, the Vienna and the Bavarian State Operas.
He came to the attention of Herbert von Karajan with whom he first sang in 1976, and they would collaborate frequently – in the Verdi Requiem, 'Don Carlo', 'Aida', 'Carmen' and 'Tosca' (all preserved on record). So, what attracted the great Austrian maestro to Carreras? The sweetness of his voice, surely, as a true lyric tenor, and while he rarely sang Rossini – he perhaps lacked the nimbleness needed for the fioritura – he was wonderful in the bel canto repertoire (his Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Nemorino in 'L'elisir d'amore' are superb). Then there was that touch of vulnerability that gave some many of his roles an added dimension (his Don Carlo is complex and vivid). And perhaps quite simply the integrity and humility of his approach to his art.
A move into heavier fare, encouraged by Karajan, meant he sang Don José and moved on to Radames, Andrea Chénier and Manrico where a touch of steel in the voice paid dividends. His Don José, a study in emotional breakdown, is magnificently delineated and the depths of despair to which he sinks in the final moments reveal what a superb singing-actor he was. (That he attempted still heavier repertoire perhaps led to a decline in the sweetness of his tone.)
His role in the controversially cast 1984 DG recording of Leonard Bernstein's 'West Side Story' (a New Zealander playing the Puerto Rican Maria, a Spaniard playing the all-American Tony) brought his name before an even larger audience and the horrifyingly warts-and-all documentary of the recording sessions with Bernstein revealing a deeply unpleasant side earned him many people's sympathy.
When leukaemia struck in 1987, while he was making a film of 'La bohème', he was forced to scale back his career,. He performed fewer staged operas (he quit opera entirely in 2009) and he started to embrace the stadium mega-spectaculars – the Three Tenors franchise, launched with little fanfare though with colossal success in Rome in 1990 on the eve of the World Cup Final, not only re-energised Carreras’s career but also changed the face of "classical" music forever.
On stage and in the recording studio Carreras gave us numerous emotionally engaged and remarkably powerful operatic characters that rival the finest. His essential modesty – he lacked the larger-than-life persona of Pavarotti and the dramatic charisma of Domingo – earned him a special place in many music lover’s affections. Simply listen to his Rodolfo in Act 1 of Puccini’s La bohème to not hear not only the special chemistry of his singing with Katia Ricciarelli, but also how perfectly he inhabits an ensemble – and as the act closes with Mimí and Rodolfo discovering the blossoming of their young love, prepare to have your heart stole, as only opera can.
[Due to geo-blocking restrictions, some tracks might be unavailable in certain territories.]