James Lawrence Levine ( /lɨˈvaɪn/; born June 23, 1943) is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently on hiatus from his work as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, a situation necessitated by health problems and not due to end before the fall of 2013; the hiatus began in May 2011.

Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and, as of June 2011, he had conducted 2,442 Met performances, a record.^[1] The conductor has held music director positions with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. In 1997, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.^[2]

Early years[link]

Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a musical family: his maternal grandfather was a cantor in a synagogue, his father was a violinist who led a dance band, and his mother was an actress. He began to play the piano as a small child. At the age of 10, he made his concert debut as soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, Vermont. In the following year he began studies with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. After graduating from Walnut Hills High School, the acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati, he entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964 and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra and then served as assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made his debut as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell. He made his debut in that same year with the Welsh National Opera and the San Francisco Opera. In June, 1971, he was called in at the last moment to substitute for an ailing István Kertész^[3] in the season opener of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer festival, the Ravinia Festival; the program was the Symphony no. 2, "Resurrection," of Gustav Mahler. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: two years later, in 1973, he was appointed music director of the Ravinia Festival (his predecessor in this position was Kertész, who had died in April). Levine held the position until 1993, and made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. He also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival (1974–1978).

Metropolitan Opera[link]

Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut on June 5, 1971,[1] in a festival performance of Tosca. His success led to further appearances and to his appointment as its principal conductor in 1973. He became music director in 1976. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986,^[4] and relinquished the title in 2004.

Under his leadership, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and chorus has become one of the finest operatic ensembles in the world, punctuated by the regular concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles he began at Carnegie Hall.^[5] On his recent appointment as General Manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that James Levine would be welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there.

At the Met, Levine has led numerous new productions of works of Mozart, Verdi, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Gioachino Rossini, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Weill, Claude Debussy, Alban Berg, and George Gershwin. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned especially to mark the occasion.

Levine has led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. The company broadcasts regular Live-In-HD television around the world to cinemas, and live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts every Saturday afternoons around the world each season from December to April.

Boston Symphony Orchestra[link]

Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972.^[6] In October 2001, Levine was named music director of the BSO, effective with the 2004–2005 season, with an initial contract of five years,^[7] becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.

One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works.^[8] Since the start of his tenure, the orchestra has also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about US$40 million to fund the more expensive of Levine's projects.^[9]

One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that Levine had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine himself has responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."^[10]

Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music has increased physical stress with some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands.^[11] Levine has received general critical praise for revitalizing the quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.^[12]

In April 2010, in the wake of Levine's continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that Levine was the BSO's music director without a signed contract.^[13]

On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced that Levine would step down from his post as Music Director in September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season. He had been experiencing ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how much longer Levine's tenure with the BSO would be.^[14] The announcement brought to a sad end Levine's belated bid for recognition as a transformational orchestral conductor.^[15]

Conducting in Europe[link]

Levine's Boston Symphony contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras but Levine has conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine has been a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Dresden Staatskapelle. Since 1975 he has conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004 he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.^[16]

Chamber Music and Work as Accompanist[link]

Levine has performed in chamber music ensembles and as accompanist in Lieder recitals.

Work with students[link]

Levine has initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.

Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 2000 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met. After becoming Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as Music Director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.

Levine himself has said in interviews:

"At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world."

Conductors he has helped and influenced through his musical mentoring include Marco Armiliato, James Conlon, and John Keenan.

Health problems[link]

Levine has experienced recurrent health issues in recent years, including sciatica and what he has called "intermittent tremors".^[17] On March 1, 2006, Levine tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time, Jens Georg Bachmann. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006, leading the BSO at Tanglewood.^[18]

Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season, because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst.^[7] He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, leading the BSO's season opening concert at Symphony Hall.^[19] On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed some three weeks of engagements, including a season opening performance at Carnegie Hall with the BSO, performances of Tosca at the Met, and regular BSO subscription concerts.^[20]

In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain.^[21][22] The Metropolitan Opera also announced, on April 4, 2010, that Levine was withdrawing from the remainder of his scheduled performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem."^[23] Levine returned to conducting duties at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010-11 season, but in February 2011 he cancelled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season, including the Tanglewood summer festival.^[24] These cancellations were followed by the announcement that Levine would officially resign from his post as Music Director on September 1, 2011.^[25] In the summer of 2011 Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September, after falling and injuring his back while on vacation in Vermont, it was announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011, and that Fabio Luisi would step up to the role of principal conductor.^[26] In December, he ruled himself out of performing again before the fall of 2013.^[27]

Recordings[link]

Levine can be seen and heard in many audio and video recordings. Levine has recorded extensively with many orchestras and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aïda with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon in 1987–1989 can be found on compact disc and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD.

Film[link]

Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking to Mickey Mouse before introducing the Pomp and Circumstance March #4 segment.

References[link]

External links[link]

• James Levine at Allmusic

American Masters is a PBS television show which produces biographies on the artists, actors and writers of the United States who have left a profound impact on the nation's popular culture. It is produced by WNET in New York City. The show debuted on PBS in 1986.^[1]

Groups or organizations featured include: Actor's Studio, Algonquin Round Table, Group Theatre, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Women of Tin Pan Alley, Negro Ensemble Company, Juilliard School, the Beat Generation, The Singer-songwriters of the 1970s, Sun Records, Vaudeville, and Warner Bros. Pictures.

History[link]

American Masters, a series "devoted to America's 'greatest native-born and adopted' artists," was originally scheduled to premier in September 1985; for "logistical scheduling reasons" the premiere was delayed until summer 1986, though on October 16, 1985, an American Masters "special" called Aaron Copland: A Self-Portrait was aired.^[2]

The first of the 15 first-season episodes was Private Conversations,^[3] a "cinema-verite documentary by Christian Blackwood done in that trickiest of cinematic forms: a film about a film, in this instance the television version of Death of a Salesman, directed by Volker Schlöndorff".^[4] It aired on June 23, 1986, as one of two episodes not specifically commissioned for the show's first season.^[4]

Susan Lacy, American Masters creator and executive producer, selected each subject, matched them to the specific film makers, and oversaw a first-season budget of $8 million.^[4] Before creating the series Lacy had been the senior programmer for Great Performances and one of the "architects" of American Playhouse, having written the original proposal for the latter. At the time of the show's premiere, she was also the East Coast head of the Sundance Institute.^[4]

After the show's first two seasons, American Masters began producing most of its episodes; in those cases, it hires directors, arranges for funding, manages the budget, and supervises the editing; the show reserves the right to make the final cut on every film it produces.^[5] The American Masters production company occasionally plays a more limited role and co-produces some of its episodes, such as the 2005 documentary on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, and then in 2010 The Doors, When You're Strange.

Subjects[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

A[link]

• Actor's Studio
• Stella Adler
• Louisa May Alcott
• Algonquin Round Table
• Woody Allen
• Atlantic Records
• Louis Armstrong
• John James Audubon
• Richard Avedon

B[link]

• Joan Baez
• George Balanchine
• James Baldwin
• Lucille Ball
• Tony Bennett
• Leonard Bernstein
• Jeff Bridges
• James Brown
• Carol Burnett

C[link]

• John Cage
• Alexander Calder
• Cab Calloway
• Robert Capa
• Truman Capote
• Johnny Carson
• John Cassavetes
• Willa Cather
• Lon Chaney
• Charlie Chaplin
• Ray Charles
• Julia Child
• Harold Clurman
• Nat King Cole
• Sam Cooke
• Aaron Copland
• Walter Cronkite
• George Cukor
• Merce Cunningham
• Edward S. Curtis

D[link]

• James Dean
• Placido Domingo
• The Doors (When You're Strange)
• Bob Dylan (No Direction Home)

E[link]

• Thomas Eakins
• Charles and Ray Eames
• Clint Eastwood
• Albert Einstein
• Duke Ellington
• Ralph Ellison

F[link]

• Ella Fitzgerald
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• John Ford/John Wayne
• Miloš Forman
• Aretha Franklin
• Buckminster Fuller

G[link]

• Judy Garland
• Marvin Gaye
• Frank Gehry
• George Gershwin
• Allen Ginsberg
• Lillian Gish
• Philip Glass
• Samuel Goldwyn
• Benny Goodman
• Glenn Gould
• Martha Graham
• Cary Grant
• D.W. Griffith
• Woody Guthrie
• Group Theatre

H[link]

• Merle Haggard
• Dashiell Hammett
• John H. Hammond
• Helen Hayes
• Lillian Hellman
• Ernest Hemingway
• Jerry Herman
• Don Hewitt
• Al Hirschfeld
• Alfred Hitchcock/David O. Selznick
• Hollywood Chinese
• David Hockney
• Billie Holiday
• Lena Horne
• Zora Neale Hurston

I[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

J[link]

• Jasper Johns
• Philip Johnson
• Bill T. Jones
• Quincy Jones
• Juilliard School

K[link]

• Danny Kaye
• Elia Kazan
• Buster Keaton
• Garrison Keillor
• Gene Kelly
• André Kertész

L[link]

• Harper Lee
• Annie Leibovitz
• John Lennon
• James Levine
• Harold Lloyd
• Cachao Lopez
• George Lucas
• Henry Luce

M[link]

• Norman Mailer
• Bob Marley
• Sanford Meisner
• Yehudi Menuhin
• Arthur Miller
• Joni Mitchell
• Margaret Mitchell
• Marilyn Monroe
• Robert Motherwell
• John Muir
• Edward R. Murrow

N[link]

• Negro Ensemble Company
• Willie Nelson
• Bob Newhart
• Mike Nichols/Elaine May
• Alwin Nikolais/Murray Louis
• Isamu Noguchi

O[link]

• Phil Ochs
• Georgia O'Keeffe
• Eugene O'Neill

P[link]

• Jack Paar
• Charlie Parker
• Les Paul
• Pearl Jam (Pearl Jam Twenty)
• Gregory Peck
• I.M. Pei
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Sidney Poitier
• Cole Porter
• Katherine Anne Porter

Q[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

R[link]

• Robert Rauschenberg
• Man Ray
• Lou Reed
• Frederic Remington
• Diego Rivera
• Jerome Robbins
• Paul Robeson
• Norman Rockwell
• Richard Rodgers
• Will Rogers
• Arthur Rubinstein

S[link]

• Mort Sahl
• Augustus Saint-Gaudens
• Waldo Pressman Salt
• Charles M. Schulz
• Martin Scorsese
• Pete Seeger
• Maurice Sendak
• Rod Serling
• Neil Simon
• Paul Simon
• Isaac Bashevis Singer
• W. Eugene Smith
• Alfred Stieglitz
• Isaac Stern
• George Stevens
• Preston Sturges
• William Styron
• Sun Records
• Sweet Honey in the Rock

T[link]

• Paul Taylor
• Dalton Trumbo

U[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

V[link]

• Sarah Vaughan
• Gore Vidal

W[link]

• Andy Warhol
• Warner Brothers
• Alice Waters
• Muddy Waters
• Billy Wilder
• Hank Williams
• Tennessee Williams
• William Wyler

X[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

Y[link]

Neil Young

Z[link]

Funding[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

• Cuismart (November 2, 1998-July 6, 2006)
• Le Cordon Bleu (August 18, 2004)
• The Charles H. Revsion Foundation (July 21, 1998-Present)
• Carnegie Corporation of New York (July 6, 1983-Present)
• Park Foundation (January 6, 1996-2006)
• National Endowment for the Humanities (August 24, 1994–December 26, 2005)
• National Endowment for the Arts (July 6, 1983–present)
• Rosland P. Walter (May 1, 1992–present)
• The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (2009–present)
• American Playhouse (2001–present)
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting (January 6, 1983–present)
• Institute for Civil Society (1999-2005)
• Viewers Like You (January 6, 1983–present)
• MasterCard (August 29, 2000–August 31, 2007)
• Apple Inc. (August 29, 2000–2008)
• American Express (August 24, 1994-August 31, 1995)

References[link]

External links[link]

• PBS: American Masters

Christa Ludwig (born 16 March 1928) is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature. Her career spanned from the late 1940s until the early 1990s.

Professional career[link]

Ludwig was born in Berlin to a musical family; her father, Anton Ludwig, was a tenor and an operatic administrator, her mother, the mezzo-soprano Eugenie Besalla-Ludwig who sang at the Aachen Opera during Herbert von Karajan's period as conductor. Ludwig's first voice teacher was her mother.

Ludwig made her debut in 1946 at the age of 18 as Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus at Frankfurt, where she sang until 1952. She was a member of the Darmstadt Opera from 1952 to 1954, then sang the 1954–1955 season at the Staatsoper Hannover. She joined the Vienna State Opera in 1955, where she became one of its principal artists and was appointed Kammersängerin in 1962 and performed with the company for more than thirty years. In 1954, Ludwig made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and appeared there regularly until 1981. Ludwig made her debut as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival in 1966. In 1960, she performed as Adalgisa alongside Maria Callas as Norma, in Bellini's opera by the same title.

Ludwig made her American debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Dorabella in Così fan tutte in 1959. That same year, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in as Cherubino, and subsequently sang 121 performances until 1993, including the Met premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten. Ludwig first appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1969 as Amneris in Aida.

As Ludwig's voice matured, she expanded her repertoire from lyric and spinto mezzo-roles to dramatic roles. Her vast repertory eventually grew to encompass Carmen, Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera), Monteverdi's Octavia (L'incoronazione di Poppea), Dido (Les Troyens), Kundry (Parsifal), Klytemnestra (Elektra) and contemporary roles by von Einem and Orff. She also ventured briefly into the spinto and dramatic soprano repertory with performances of Verdi's Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Strauss's Dyer's Wife (Die Frau ohne Schatten), the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) and Beethoven's Leonore (Fidelio) .

In addition to her opera performances, Ludwig regularly gave recitals of Lieder (together with the German pianist Sebastian Peschko and on occasion, Leonard Bernstein) and as a soloist with orchestras. Her performances of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler and Strauss are much admired. She also sang Bach and performed and recorded most of his major vocal works.

From 1957 to 1970, Ludwig was married to the bass-baritone Walter Berry; the couple performed together frequently, notably in Die Frau ohne Schatten. In 1972, she married the French theater actor Paul-Emile Deiber.

In 1993–1994, Ludwig gave a series of farewell recitals in many cities and made her farewell appearance at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as Fricka in Die Walküre.

Ludwig's final live operatic performance was Klytemnestra in Elektra for the Vienna State Opera in 1994.

The same year, Ludwig published a memoir with Peter Csobádi.^[1] Two English translations of the book are available.

Ludwig has been teaching Master Classes since her retirement.

Quote[link]

In times where personalities are thinly sown, we have first class, yes excellent, musical practitioners, who lack intuition, imagination, and a feeling for composers, who, even though they lived in the past, can speak to us about today. Courage is needed to reveal one's own feelings in interpretation and not tell the audience with raised forefinger: "The composer wanted it like this, and no other way." But at the same time we singers must never forget that we are only the servants of the great minds who created all the wonderful pieces of music we enjoy today. - In My Own Voice (p.119) translated by Regina Domeraski

References[link]

External links[link]

• Biography of Ludwig from Cantabile-subito.de
• Biography of Ludwig from Bach-Cantatas.com
• [1]
• Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

Siegfried Jerusalem (born 17 April 1940) is a German operatic tenor. Closely identified with the heldentenor roles of Wagner, he has performed Siegfried, Siegmund, Lohengrin, Parsifal and Tristan to wide acclaim. Since the 1990s, he has focused on lieder, particularly those by Strauss, Mahler and Schumann.

Beginnings[link]

Siegfried Jerusalem was born at Oberhausen, and studied piano, violin and bassoon at the Folkwangschule in Essen. He began his career as bassoonist, being engaged in Hof in 1961 and for the next ten years in Reutlingen: from 1971-77 he was attached to the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the South-German Radio in Stuttgart. In 1971 he also began taking voice lessons with Hertha Kalcher of Stuttgart.^[1] In 1975, when due to perform in the orchestra of a television production of Der Zigeunerbaron, he stood in for the tenor Franco Bonisolli at the last minute.

Operatic singer[link]

Thenceforth Jerusalem made singing his career. His first major role was Lohengrin in 1976, a role in which he soon appeared at Darmstadt, Aachen, Hamburg and at the Zurich Festival, and later in Munich and the New York Met. He followed this with Max in Der Freischütz at Stuttgart. His Bayreuth career opened in 1977, where by 1981 he had performed Froh (Das Rheingold), the Young Sailor (Tristan und Isolde) and then Lohengrin, Parsifal and Walter von Stolzing (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg).

His Parsifal was also heard in Vienna at that time, and his Siegmund (Die Walküre) (with Jessye Norman, Theo Adam and Yvonne Minton) in Dresden (1981). In addition to stage appearances he gave various concert performances which, like the Dresden Walküre or the Rome Lohengrin were broadcast internationally. From 1978 he became a regular member of the German Opera in Berlin, and had permanent contract with the companies in Stuttgart, Zürich, Munich and Vienna as well as making international guest appearances.^[2]

His Bayreuth career continued with Siegfried in 1988 (Siegfried) and 1989 (Götterdämmerung). In 1990 he appeared at the Metropolitan Opera with James Levine, singing both Siegfrieds, as well as the difficult role of Loge. The production was televised, and is available on DVD. In 1993 he debuted as Tristan at the Bayreuth Festival, and took the role to most of the major houses in Europe.

Awards[link]

On 9 October 1997 he was presented with the German Federal Cross of Merit. His last performance at Bayreuth was in 1999 as Tristan. He currently teaches at the College of Music in Nuremberg.

Recordings[link]

Jerusalem performs in a series of audio and video recordings of Wagner operas conducted by James Levine at the Met, Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez at Bayreuth, and others made in the 1980s and 1990s.

Jerusalem has also made an attempt at some crossover music in two albums The Glory of Love (1996) and Avalon (2002).

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview with Jerusalem on his 61st birthday
• The best of Siegfried Jerusalem

Domingo speaks at the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors on October 31, 2008, in Washington, DC.

Plácido Domingo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈplaθiðo ðoˈmiŋɡo]; born 21 January 1941),^[1] born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range. In March 2008, he debuted in his 128th opera role,^[2] and as of July 2011, his 136 roles give Domingo more roles than any other tenor.^[3]

One of The Three Tenors, he has also taken on conducting opera and concert performances, and he is the General Director of the Los Angeles Opera in California.