(What's up with this dialog thing? It looks like a script. Why not just write in paragraphs?  Click here for the answer.)
 

Plácido Domingo

Xan's XoneFriends are curious about how she first became a fan of Plácido Domingo.
 

ROSA: When did you first come to hear of Plácido Domingo?

XAN: You know, I'm not really sure. I think it had to have been way back around 1970, when he came to town touring in the Metropolitan Opera production of Tosca. I was about seventeen, and I was reading the newspapers by then, so I'm almost sure I must have seen the ads for it, and the reviews. But I don't actively remember that.

GEORGE: So you didn't become a fan then.

XAN: Oh, no. I wasn't even an opera fan then. That came later, when I was in college. I saw my first opera then, Rossini's Barber of Seville, in English. I should tell you about that some time, when we can spend more time on how I discovered opera in the first place.

GEORGE: Well, we can certainly do that. But tell us why it took thirty years between learning of his existence and becoming a fan.

XAN: Well, mainly for two reasons. First, when I began listening to classical music, it was first instrumental and later choral, and when I really got into opera I was listening to mostly Baroque and Classical operas, with a sprinkling of moderns. And that had to do with the people I was listening to -- that was their métier, their repertoire. I couldn't get into the Romantics or verismo at all. And of course that's what Plácido sings the most.

ROSA: What was the second reason?

Xan grins.

XAN: Second ... maybe I shouldn't admit this ... I didn't -- and to some extent still don't -- like the tenor as a voice type. I prefer the lower voices -- especially the bass-baritone voice.

GEORGE: So you weren't collecting tenors.

XAN: Not at all.

ROSA: Why is Plácido an exception, then? If you don't like tenors and you don't like his repertoire, how did you ever come to listen to him enough to decide you liked him?

XAN: Well, the purists will probably scream, but it was because of one of his crossover albums.

GEORGE: Really! Which one?

XAN: You should like this, George. It was the CD of ranchera songs, Cien años de mariachi.

George smiles.

GEORGE: Ah, sí. ¿Por qué?

XAN: Well, when I started working with you I decided I wanted to learn Spanish, so I took a few classes. And one of the things I did while I was studying was to listen to a whole lot of CDs of songs in Spanish, just to get the language in my head in interesting ways. And to get to know something about the culture. Cultures. And one of the ones I listened to was Cien años de mariachi.

ROSA: And you liked it, obviously.

XAN: More than that. As I learned more of the language I began to understand more of the words in the songs, and as I began to understand the words, I began to understand better what he was doing with them when he sang. The expression, the colors, the emotions -- they all became more intense. I really think that it made a huge difference that the first thing of his that I really paid close attention to was a collection of songs that he was singing in his own language. There's nothing like that extra degree of comfort you get from knowing exactly what you're singing about to give that essential conviction to the performance. It just blew me away. And then I started listening to the voice itself.

GEORGE: And did it change your mind about tenors?

Xan smiles.

XAN: I wouldn't go so far as to say that. It gave me a better appreciation for what tenors do, but I still don't care for the sound of most tenors all that much. However, there are no other tenors who sound like Plácido, so I don't feel as if I'm being terribly inconsistent in liking his voice even if he is a tenor.

GEORGE: I thought I read somewhere that he actually isn't really a tenor, that when he first started singing he sang baritone.

XAN: That's the story. When he was a young man he sang with his parents' zarzuela company in Mexico, and the roles he sang were baritone roles, because the heroes in zarzuela are baritones, not tenors as they are in most operas. But the parts are still rather high-lying for baritones. Then he auditioned at the Mexican national opera, and they told him they thought he was a tenor. Which surprised him, because he couldn't even hit the A in the tenor aria they asked him to sing.

ROSA: Why would he believe he was a baritone if he was a tenor?

XAN: Well, most men are naturally baritones -- tenors are quite rare. He just may not have been sure -- I mean, heck, he was still in his teens, and you know how young voices haven't developed their full weight and potential. And I imagine that when he sang in the zarzuelas, he wanted to sing the part of the hero, so he wanted to be a baritone. I'm guessing that the panel that auditioned him in Mexico City heard something in the quality of the sound he made  that they believed was, or could be trained into, a tenor sound. It's not all just about range. There's a particular color to the sound as well.

ALEC: But tenorrrrssss have to be able to ssssing high notessss, don't they? An A issssn't very high for a tenor.

XAN: No, it's not. But he hadn't been singing as a tenor, so he hadn't trained himself to hit that note. And when he started training as a tenor, he had to really work to get the high notes. They never came easily for him, he's said so himself. And I think that's another reason I find him more interesting than other tenors -- he's had to work far harder to achieve the same -- no, better --  results, and I can hear that in his singing. He is totally committed to being the best tenor he can be, and he's worked his tail off because he can't just open his mouth and expect the miracle to happen every time.

ROSA: So you like him because he's an atypical tenor, not a typical one.

XAN: Exactly. Also because he has more of a baritone's temperament than a tenor's. Which is not to say that every tenor has the type of personality that's most often attributed to them, but enough of them do to make it a little more than a cliché.

GEORGE: What else?

XAN: Well, there's his musicianship. He's not just a singer, he plays the piano -- started that as a child -- and I've read that he also plays the organ, the guitar and the accordion.

ALEC: The accorrrrdion? You'rrrre kidding.

XAN: All I know is what I've read. I'd love to hear him play it, if it's true. I've heard him play the piano in a couple of documentaries, but the other instruments, well that's just hearsay.

ROSA: He conducts, too, doesn't he?

XAN: Yes. In fact he's said that that was sort of his first choice as a career, before he got steered into singing by people who liked his voice. And hopefully when he finally decides to retire as a singer, he'll still go on conducting for another quarter of a century or so.

GEORGE: So it sounds like he really impressed you on many levels.

XAN: Absolutely. What's more, he has broadened my horizons in directions I would never have believed. I decided I wanted to hear him in his operatic-tenor mode, so I started looking for things that would give me an idea of what that was like. And I got lucky. The first opera recording I happened to pick up was his 1994 Idomeneo.

ROSA: Why was that lucky?

XAN: Because it was Mozart, and Mozart was -- is -- one of my favorite opera composers. And because I'd known and liked that particular opera for almost twenty years. So I figured that if I enjoyed his performance in that, I could go on to something less familiar.

ROSA: But Mozart isn't really a major part of his repertoire, is it?

XAN: No, it's not. And I knew after the first time I listened to him do it that he wasn't really the ideal Mozartean. He doesn't, I think, have the touch of irony in his makeup that makes for a truly great Mozart singer. He's not ...

ROSA: Detached enough?

Xan gives a soft snicker.

XAN: Enough? More like, not at all. But this particular role, Idomeneo, is a part which I think really requires the kind of intense emotion that a singer of Romantic operas expresses quite naturally in those settings, so it was appropriate that he use some of that in this context. It worked for me, anyway, and I went looking for more.

ALEC: And boy, did you ffffind it.

XAN: You said it. He has an enormous recorded output. I've found a lot of it, but there's a lot more I'd still like to get my hands on. And such a variety of stuff! Not only Verdi and Puccini, but Bellini, Giordano, Berlioz, Offenbach, Zandonai, Cilea, Gounod, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Beethoven, Donizetti -- even Wagner. I would never have believed it, but now I'm even, dare I say it, starting to like Wagner a little.

ALEC: I think I'mmmm going to ffffaint ...

XAN: Oh, hush.

GEORGE: Well, Alec has a point. You did used to be pretty clear that you didn't like anything between Rossini and Vaughan Williams, with the possible exception of Berlioz. Something about emotional manipulation?

XAN: Well, yes, but that was years ago. I used to turn up my nose at the Romantics in particular, because I felt like they were trying to tell me what and how much to feel without letting me decide for myself. And as you know, I resist anything I perceive as manipulation, so I naturally put up a fight there.

ROSA: What changed your mind, then? Plácido's singing?

XAN: Welllll, no, not as such. I think I'd been trying to open myself up to emotional experience for some time before that. And I think that meant that I was ready to hear what he was offering me in his singing, and ready to listen to the kinds of operas he does best, with the attention and frame of mind they deserved. I've gotten to the point where I enjoy watching people emote at the top of their lungs.

Rosa smiles.

ROSA: Good for you.

XAN: Mind you, I don't say I always feel exactly what they're feeling -- hardly. A lot of the time I think the characters are nuts. But it is extremely enlightening to watch and listen to them. I love  seeing and hearing men express intense emotions of the sort that they're taught to deny and suppress in real life. Especially Plácido. He offers you everything he's got. And it's up to you whether you take it or not.

ROSA: And you do. Take it,  I mean.

XAN: Yes. There are some things that, if I should be so lucky as to see him do them live, I would never want to see if I had no choice but to take a standing room ticket.

GEORGE: I don't understand. Of course you wouldn't want to go as a standee if you had any other choice. What's that got to do with watching singers -- watching Plácido -- express intense emotions on stage?

XAN: Because of the effect of watching him do it -- in Otello in particular.

GEORGE: Seguro. But why?

XAN: Because by the end of "Dio mi potevi scagliar" I'd be on my knees, and I wouldn't be able to see the rest of the opera. That aria, more than any other, I think, just turns me to water. And while there was a time when I would have resisted that "manipulation," now I welcome it. And I think that can be put to his credit and no one else's.

ROSA: Now that's a real tribute if I've ever heard one.

XAN: It's the absolute truth. And it's what I love most about him.
 

[Read Xan's account of meeting Plácido Domingo after seeing him play the first role she heard him sing, Idomeneo, live on stage at the Washington Opera.]

[To Plácido Domingo's official Website]

[to the archive site tenorissimo.com (no longer updated, but with good information and pictures)]

[back to favorite singers]

©2002 Xan Laurence

Xan backstage with Plácido Domingo after the Opening Night 2002 performance of Idomeneo

back to Favorite Singers