Placido Domingo

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A tireless performer, conductor, and ambassador for opera, Placido Domingo is one of today's greatest and most popular tenors. His remarkably diverse and challenging repertoire includes opera, operettas, musicals, Spanish and Mexican folk songs, and popular tunes.
Drawing on interviews with Domingo, his wife Marta, colleagues, and music critics, Cornelius Schnauber richly depicts both the private and the public man. He critically examines the many facets of Domingo's career, exploring the tenor's extraordinary work as a stage, film, and video performer, a recording artist, and a conductor. Schnauber provides a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Domingo's vocal technique in different settings and genres. In addition, he discusses Domingo's powerful acting talent, which draws on the Stanislavsky method, and his ability to give a unique interpretation to each role he performs.
Schnauber traces many of Domingo's distinguishing characteristics -- consummate professionalism, artistic and personal reliability, versatility -- to his early years in Mexico City, when he toured with his parents in Spanish zazuela performances and began singing in productions as varied as My Fair Lady and La Traviata. The author considers how Domingo's development as a tenor and his professional choices have shaped his contemporary work. The book also gives an enlightening glimpse into his rigorous schedule of opera performances, gala benefit concerts, and recording sessions, as well as his demanding responsibilities as artistic consultant and Board member of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.