Franz Lehár

Signature

Franz Lehár (30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).

Biography[link]

Lehár was born in the northern part of Komárom, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Komárno, Slovakia), the eldest son of an Austrian bandmaster in the Infantry Regiment No. 50 of the Austro-Hungarian Army and a Hungarian woman from a family of German descent. He grew up speaking only Hungarian until the age of 12. Later he put a diacritic above the "a" of his father's name "Lehar" to indicate the long vowel in Hungarian phonology.

While his younger brother Anton entered cadet school in Vienna to become a professional officer, Franz studied violin and composition at the Prague Conservatory, where his violin teacher was Antonín Bennewitz, but was advised by Antonín Dvořák to focus on composing music. After graduation in 1899 he joined his father's band in Vienna, as assistant bandmaster. In 1902 he became conductor at the historic Vienna Theater an der Wien, where his first opera Wiener Frauen was performed in November of that year.

He is most famous for his operettas – the most successful of which is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe) – but he also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems, marches, and a number of waltzes (the most popular being Gold und Silber, composed for Princess Pauline von Metternich's "Gold and Silver" Ball, January 1902), some of which were drawn from his famous operettas. Individual songs from some of the operettas have become standards, notably "Vilja" from The Merry Widow and "You Are My Heart's Delight" ("Dein ist mein ganzes Herz") from The Land of Smiles (Das Land des Lächelns).

Lehár was also associated with the operatic tenor Richard Tauber, who sang in many of his operettas, beginning with Frasquita (1922), in which Lehár once again found a suitable post-war style. Between 1925 and 1934 he wrote six operettas specifically for Tauber's voice. By 1935 he decided to form his own publishing house, Glocken-Verlag (Publishing House of the Bells), to maximize his personal control over performance rights to his works.

Lehár and the Third Reich[link]

Lehár's relationship with the Nazi regime was an uneasy one. He had always used Jewish librettists for his operas and had been part of the cultural milieu in Vienna which included a significant Jewish contingent.^[1] Further, although Lehár was Roman Catholic, his wife, Sophie (née Paschkis) had been Jewish before her conversion to Catholicism upon marriage, and this was sufficient to generate hostility towards them personally and towards his work. Hitler enjoyed Lehár's music, and hostility diminished across Germany after Goebbels's intervention on Lehár's part.^[2] In 1938 Mrs. Lehár was given the status of "Ehrenarierin" (honorary Aryan by marriage).^[3] Nonetheless, attempts were made at least once to have her deported. The Nazi regime was aware of the uses of Lehár's music for propaganda purposes: concerts of his music were given in occupied Paris in 1941. Even so, Lehár's influence was limited: it is said that he tried personally to secure Hitler's guarantee of the safety of one of his librettists, Fritz Löhner-Beda, but he was not able to prevent the murder of Beda in Auschwitz-III.^[4]

Later years[link]

He died in 1948 in Bad Ischl, near Salzburg, and was buried there.

His younger brother Anton became the administrator of his estate, promoting the popularity of Franz Lehár's music.

Honours[link]

• He was elected an honorary citizen of Sopron in 1940.
• In 1940 Hitler awarded him the Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft.
• There is a street in Vienna named after him. Additionally, several towns in the Netherlands have named streets after him (e.g. in Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht and Tilburg).

Stage works[link]

Lehár recording[link]

In 1947, Lehár conducted the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich in a series of 78-rpm recordings for English Decca (released in the U.S. by London Records) of overtures and waltzes from his operettas. The recordings had remarkable sound for their time because they were made using Decca's "full frequency range recording" process, one of the first commercial high fidelity techniques. These recordings were later issued on LP and CD. A compilation of his recordings has been released by Naxos Records.

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Bordman, Gerald. American Operetta. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
• Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.
• Grun, Bernard. Gold and Silver: The Life and Times of Franz Lehár. New York: David McKay Co., 1970.
• Traubner, Richard. Operetta: A Theatrical History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1983

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Franz Lehár

Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Lehar, Franz.

• Recording Alfie Boe's Franz Lehár: Love was a Dream
• Free scores by Franz Lehár at the International Music Score Library Project
• Musical Theatre Guide page
• Recording by Lotte Lehmann of "So war meine Mutter…Wär es nichts…" from Eva in MP3 format
• Vocal score to Alone at Last (1915)
• Vocal score to Gypsy Love (1911)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2012)

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Daniel Nazareth is a composer and conductor.

Early life[link]

Daniel Nazarath was born in Bombay, India. His parents ran the well known Nazareth Public Speaking Academy.

Career[link]

Daniel Nazareth began violin lessons at age of 7. He earned degrees in Commerce and Economics from Bombay University in 1968. He earned a degree in piano from the Royal College of Music, London, in 1969. Nazareth later attended the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst and earned an Honours Diploma in Orchestral Conducting in 1975.

Nazareth was a prize winner at the 1974 International Nikolai Malko Conductors Competition in Copenhagen, Denmark. This led to a series of conducting engagements in Scandinavia and an opportunity to study privately with Igor Markevitch. In the summer of 1976, Nazareth was a recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship and of the Koussevitsky Music Foundation Conductor's Award at Tanglewood, USA. There, his mentors included Bernstein, Colin Davis and Seiji Ozawa.

On the invitation of Gian Carlo Menotti, Nazareth conducted his first opera, Cosi fan tutte, in the summer of 1977 at the Spoleto Festival, Italy. Nazareth also won the first Ernest Ansermet Conducting Competition in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Nazareth was music director of the Teatro San Carlo from 1988 to 1990. From 1990 to 1991 he served as Music Director of the Ente Lirico Festival at the Arena di Verona, Italy.

After the re-unification of Germany, Nazareth served as Chief Conductor of the Orchestra of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk from 1992 to 1996. He and the orchestra celebrated the 15th anniversary of the papacy of Pope John Paul II with a live TV concert at the Vatican in 1993. Video productions with the MDR Television Leipzig included Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Mass in C, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, Mozart’s Requiem and Orff’s Carmina Burana.

In August 2000, Nazareth conducted the Opera di Roma’s Centenary Production of Puccini’s TOSCA at the Roman Olympic Stadium and at the World Expo 2000 in Hannover/ Germany. In July 2002, he conducted the first performance of Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony in the New Critical Edition commissioned by the International Gustav Mahler Society, Vienna, at the Bregenz Festival, Austria.

Daniel Nazareth is Music Director designate of the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Costa Rica.

Nazareth's recordings include the world premiere recording of Respighi’s Sinfonia Drammatica for the Marco Polo label. With the Bayerische Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, Munich, and the Munich Philharmonic he has recorded Messian’s L’Ascension, Richard Strauss’ Aus Italien and other works.

Nazareth’s compositions include three piano trios, instrumental sonatas, Gitanjali Songs to texts by Rabrindranath Tagore, Gustav Mahler Songs, a series of “Concerti Sinfonici” for violin and orchestra, viola and orchestra, cello and orchestra, piano and orchestra, an Italian opera, “Fontana dell’ Amore”, set in medieval Tuscany etc. He has arranged for orchestra a set of Debussy’s Piano Preludes from Book 1 and 2. Nazareth is creating two major works for the European Capital of Culture Istanbul 2010:

• A symphony on evolution for soloists, chorus and large orchestra, reconciling various theories of creation and evolution with the spiritual evolution poetry that Jalal ad- Din Rumi wrote 700 years ago.
• An opera 'The 'Leonardo Bridge. It narrates the story of a bridge Da Vinci planned at the Golden Horn 1503. Hitherto unknown facts about Da Vinci including his riddle compositions will be presented for the first time.

He co-authored the screenplay “Gustav and Alma” that narrates the triumph and tragedy that overcast the last decade of Gustav Mahler’s life.

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Naxos website biography
• MDR Sinfonieorchester official website (German)

Anna Netrebko
Anna Netrebko, 2005
Background information
Birth name	Anna Yuryevna Netrebko
Born	(1971-09-18) 18 September 1971 (age 40) Krasnodar, Soviet Union (now Krasnodar, Russia)
Origin	Russian
Genres	Opera
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1993–present
Website	annanetrebko.com

Anna Yuryevna Netrebko (Russian: Анна Юрьевна Нетребко, born 18 September 1971) is a Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.

Biography[link]

Netrebko was born in Krasnodar (Russia), in a family of Kuban Cossack background.^[1] While a student at the Saint Petersburg conservatoire, Netrebko worked as a janitor at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre.^[2] Later, she auditioned for the Mariinsky Theatre, where conductor Valery Gergiev recognized her from her prior work in the theater. He subsequently became her vocal mentor.^[3] Under Gergiev's guidance, Netrebko made her operatic stage debut at the Mariinsky at age 22, as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. She went on to sing many prominent roles with the Kirov Opera, including Amina in La sonnambula, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor.

In 1994, she sang the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with the Riga Independent Opera Avangarda Akadēmija under conductor David Milnes.

In March 2006, Netrebko applied to become an Austrian citizen, receiving her citizenship in late July.^[4] According to an interview in the Austrian weekly news, she will live in Vienna and Salzburg. Netrebko cites the cumbersome and humiliating process of obtaining visas (as a Russian citizen) for her many performances abroad as the main reason for obtaining Austrian citizenship.^[5]

In March 2007, Netrebko announced that she would be an ambassador for SOS Children's Village in Austria, and be a sponsor for the Tomilino village in Russia.^[6]

In April 2008, Netrebko announced that she and her fiancé, Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott, had married.^[7] Their son Tiago Aruã Schrott was born on 5 September 2008 in Vienna.^[8]

Netrebko at the Mariinsky Theatre after receiving the honorary title of People's Artist of Russia

Performances[link]

Anna Netrebko as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore

In 1995, at the age of 24, Netrebko made her American debut as Lyudmila in Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila at the San Francisco Opera. Following this successful performance, she became a frequent guest singer in San Francisco. She is known as an acclaimed interpreter of other Russian operatic roles, such as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and Peace, Louisa in Betrothal in a Monastery and Marfa in The Tsar's Bride. Netrebko has also made successful forays into bel canto and romantic roles such as Gilda in Rigoletto, Mimi in La bohème, Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Elvira in I puritani.

In 2002, Netrebko made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Natasha in the Met premiere of War and Peace.^[9] In the same year, she sang her first Donna Anna at the Salzburg Festival's production of Don Giovanni, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. She also performed at the Russian Children's Welfare Society's major fund raiser, the "Petroushka Ball". She returned to the Ball in 2003 and 2006 and is an honorary director of the charity.

In 2003, Netrebko performed as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata in Munich, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Los Angeles Opera, and Donna Anna at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Her second album, Sempre Libera, was released the following year. She later appeared as Violetta Valéry in La traviata at the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Carlo Rizzi and in 2008 she performed the same role at Covent Garden to triumphant acclaim on the opening night, opposite Jonas Kaufmann and Dmitri Hvorostovsky in performances conducted by Maurizio Benini. However, she cancelled three subsequent performances due to suffering a bronchial condition. This was the second time she had cancelled her performances at the Royal Opera House, having withdrawn from some performances of Don Giovanni the previous summer due to illness.

On 30 May 2007, Netrebko made her Carnegie Hall debut with Dmitri Hvorostovsky and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Originally scheduled for 2 March 2006, Netrebko postponed the recital because she did not feel artistically ready.^[10]

Netrebko appeared at the Last Night of the Proms on 8 September 2007 where she performed "Ah! Se una volta ... Ah! Non credea mirarti ... Ah! Non giunge" from La sonnambula, "Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß" (Giuditta) and the song "Morgen!" by Richard Strauss (with violinist Joshua Bell).^[11] In the fall of 2007 she reprised her role as Juliette in Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera. In December 2007, Netrebko performed for Martin Scorsese, a 2007 Honoree, at the Kennedy Center Honors, and in May 2008 she made a much-awaited debut at the Paris Opera in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, with Joyce DiDonato as her Romeo.

Netrebko was scheduled to sing Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor in October 2008 at the Metropolitan Opera, but due to her pregnancy she decided to drop out of the role.

In her first performance after her maternity leave, Netrebko sang Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor when it opened at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 14 January 2009, in a production from the Scottish Opera led by John Doyle.^[12] She then sang the same role in January and February 2009 at the Metropolitan Opera. Netrebko appeared as Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Royal Opera House in Spring 2009, and as Violetta in La traviata in June 2009 at the San Francisco Opera. On 13 November 2010 in a matinee performance broadcast nationally by PBS, she sang the role of Norina in Don Pasquale at New York's Metropolitan Opera House under conductor James Levine. On 2 April 2011, she sang the title role of Gaetano Donizetti's Anna Bolena at the Vienna State Opera for a sold-out premiere there, and the repeat performance on 5 April 2011 was broadcast live to cinemas around the world. On 7 December 2011 she opened very successfully the new season at La Scala in Milan as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.

In September 2011, it was announced that Netrebko will be performing at either or both of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, near her native Krasnodar.^[13]

Discography[link]

Complete opera recordings in DVD format[link]

Complete opera recordings in audio CD format[link]

Other albums in audio CD and DVD formats[link]

• Opera Arias
• Opera
• Duets (With Villazon)
• Sempre Libera
• Russian Album
• Souvenirs
• In the Still of Night
• The Mozart album
• La nozze di Figaro - Highlights
• Rossini: Stabat Mater
• Prima donna - First ladies of opera
• Puccini gold
• Puccini: La Boheme (Soundtrack Highlights)]
• Violeta: arias & duets from Verdi's La Traviata (CD/DVD)
• Stabat Mater - A Tribute to Pergolesi (CD/DVD)
• The Berlin Concert - Live from the Waldbühne DVD
• The opera gala - Live from Baden-Baden DVD
• Gala concert from St. Petersburg DVD
• The woman - The voice DVD
• A Mozart gala from Salzburg DVD

Recognitions and awards[link]

Time magazine placed her on its Time 100 list in 2007.^[14] She was identified by the journal Musical America as "a genuine superstar for the 21st century" and was named 'Musician of the Year' for 2008.^[15] She has also been described by Associated Press as "the reigning new diva of the 21st century".

She was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2004).^[16]

Playboy magazine placed her in their "sexiest babes of classical music" list.^[17]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anna Netrebko

• Official website
• Reviews, articles, photos and future schedules for Anna Netrebko from The Opera Critic
• Profile of Netrebko in the New York Times
• Anna Netrebko at the Internet Movie Database
• Anna Netrebko on YouTube
• Unofficial site of Anna Netrebko
• Unofficial Anna Netrebko Blog
• Anna Netrebko on Charlie Rose

v t e Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg Stock company Conductor and opera company director Valery Gergiev | 22 sopranos · Anna Netrebko | 13 mezzo-sopranos · Olga Borodina | 23 tenors | eight baritones | 14 basses Stages Main stage · Second stage · Concert Hall · Theatre Museum

José Carreras performing at World Economic Forum 2011

Josep Maria Carreras i Coll (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛp kəˈreɾəs]; born 5 December 1946), better known as José Carreras (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse kaˈreɾas]), is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini.^[1] Born in Barcelona, he made his debut on the opera stage at the age of 11 as Trujamán in Manuel de Falla's El retablo de Maese Pedro and went on to a career that encompassed over 60 roles on the stages of the world's leading opera houses and in the recording studio.

He gained fame with a wider audience as one of The Three Tenors along with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti in a series of mass concerts that began in 1990 and continued until 2003.^[2] Carreras is also known for his humanitarian work as the 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.^[3]

Life and career[link]

Early years[link]

The youngest of three children, Carreras was born in Sants, a working class district in Barcelona, Spain.^[4] In 1951, his family emigrated to Argentina in an unsuccessful search for a better life. However, within a year they had returned to Sants where Carreras was to spend the rest of his childhood and teenage years.^[5]

He showed an early talent for music and particularly singing, which intensified at the age of 6 when he saw Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso.^[6] 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.^[7] 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 8, he also started taking music lessons at Barcelona's Municipal Conservatory.

At the age of 8, 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.^[8] On 3 January 1958, at the age of 11, 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 'back-up ' 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[link]

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 15 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 13 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.^[9]

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.^[10] 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 Aïda, 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. 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.

It was during the filming of La bohème in Paris that he was found to be suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia and given a 1 in 10 chance of survival. However, he recovered from the disease after undergoing a gruelling treatment involving chemotherapy, radiation therapy and an autologous bone marrow transplant at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Following his recovery, he gradually returned to both the operatic and the concert stage, embarking on a tour of come-back recitals in 1988 and 1989 and singing with Montserrat Caballé in Medea (Mérida, 1989) and in the world premiere of Balada's Cristóbal Colón (Barcelona, 1989)

1990 – present[link]

Carreras backstage at the Royal Albert Hall, December 2001

The 1990s continued to see Carreras performing on the operatic stage in Carmen and Fedora and making role debuts in Samson et Dalila (Peralada, 1990), Verdi's Stiffelio (London, 1993), and Wolf-Ferrari's Sly (Zurich, 1998). However, his opera performances became less frequent as he increasingly devoted himself to concerts and recitals. His final performance in a fully staged opera was on 12 July 2002 in Tokyo, where he reprised the title role in Sly, while his final operatic performances at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the opera house where his career began, were in Samson et Dalila (March 2001).

In 1990 the first Three Tenors concert, took place in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome on the eve of the 1990 FIFA World Cup finals. It was originally conceived to raise money for Carreras's leukemia foundation and as a way for his colleagues, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, to welcome their "little brother" back to the world of opera. However, it and the subsequent Three Tenors concerts brought Carreras a fame that went far beyond the opera house.^[11] It is estimated that over a billion people around the world watched the television broadcast of the 1994 Three Tenors concert in Los Angeles.^[12] By 1999, the CD from the first Three Tenors concert in Rome had sold an estimated 13 million copies, making it the best-selling classical recording of all time.^[13] The early 1990s also saw Carreras serving as the Musical Director for the opening and closing ceremonies of 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, and performing in a worldwide concert tour in tribute to his first singing hero, Mario Lanza.

Carreras's recording and concert repertoire has now moved almost entirely into Neapolitan songs, the light classical genre, and 'easy-listening'.^[14] He has also increasingly performed and recorded with artists from outside the classical music world, such as Diana Ross, Edyta Górniak, Lluis Llach, Peter Maffay, Udo Jürgens, Klaus Meine, Charles Aznavour, Kim Styles, Sarah Brightman, Sissel Kyrkjebø, Debbie Harry, Majida El Roumi, and Giorgia Fumanti.

Humanitarian work[link]

Following his own recovery from leukemia, Carreras sought both to repay the debt he owed to medical science and to improve the lives and care of other leukemia sufferers. On 14 July 1988, he established the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation (Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras per a la Lluita contra la Leucèmia) in Barcelona. The foundation, which publishes a tri-monthly magazine on its activities, Amigos de la Fundación, concentrates its efforts in four main areas:

• Development of clinical research into the cure and treatment of leukemia through scholarships and research grants.

• Campaigns to increase bone marrow and cord blood donation for leukemia patients requiring transplants, along with the operation of REDMO, the Spanish national registry of bone marrow donors.

• Strengthening of the research and clinical infrastructures in both leading international institutions and hospitals and laboratories in the developing world.

• Provision of social services to leukemia patients and their families, including free accommodation near transplant centres.

The José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation also has affiliates in the U.S., Switzerland, and Germany, with the German affiliate the most active of the three. Since 1995, Carreras has presented an annual live television benefit gala in Leipzig to raise funds for the foundation's work in Germany. Since its inception, the gala alone has raised well over €71 million. Carreras also performs at least 20 charity concerts a year in aid of his foundation and other medical related charities. He is an Honorary Member of the European Society for Medicine and the European Haematology Association, an Honorary Patron of the European Society for Medical Oncology, and a Goodwill Ambassador for UNESCO.

Awards and distinctions[link]

Carreras has received numerous awards and distinctions for both his artistic and humanitarian work. These include: Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (France); Gran Croce di Cavaliere and Grande Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana; Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria; the Cruz de Oro del Orden Civil de la Solidaridad Social from Queen Sofia of Spain, The Prince of Asturias Prize, and the Bundesverdienstkreuz from the Federal Republic of Germany. On 23 February 2004, the Austrian Post Office issued a 1€ stamp to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his debut at the Vienna Staatsoper.

He has Honorary Doctorates from the University of Barcelona and Miguel Hernández University (Spain); Napier, Loughborough and Sheffield universities (United Kingdom); the Mendeleev Russian University of Chemistry and Technology (Russia); the University of Camerino (Italy); Rutgers University (United States); the University of Coimbra (Portugal); the National University of Music Bucharest (Romania); Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany); the University of Pécs (Hungary) and most recently, Kyunghee University (Korea) and the University of Porto (Portugal).

In Spain the central plaza in Sant Joan d'Alacant bears his name, as do two theatres – the Auditori Josep Carreras in Vila-seca (near Tarragona) and The Teatro Josep Carreras in Fuenlabrada.^[15]