Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Spanish musician Placido Domingo.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
José Plácido Domingo Embil is a Spanish opera singer, conductor and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and Russian in the most prestigious opera houses in the world. Although primarily a lirico-spinto tenor for most of his career, especially popular for his Cavaradossi, Hoffmann, Don José and Canio, he quickly moved into more dramatic roles, becoming the most acclaimed Otello of his generation. In the early 2010s, he transitioned from the tenor repertory into exclusively baritone parts, most notably Simon Boccanegra. As of 2020, he has performed 151 different roles.
I then realized that I could never be satisfied again with the mere natural charm of my voice, that I had to constantly paint when singing, melting all the colors, expressing reds and blacks that had to be less primary but bursting with subtly colored combinations.
I have always studied my parts with the orchestral score and not with the piano reduction.
Honestly, if the public still wants to hear me in some works, I have to go down a half step.
On the other hand, I have devoted so much energy to reach the top that I accept the stress of being there.
Between parts I was too old for and roles that were too overwhelming, out of reach then for my voice. I carved out a niche with the Wagnerian repertoire since I am attracted by its theatrical intensity.
I feel at home in an orchestral score.
But I won't deprive myself of singing opera as long as my voice follows.
The public made me and then encouraged me for many years, and my future even now depends upon it.
To stay at my best, I have to stop talking during the preceding day.
The public is a part of my real life.
The voice collects and translates your bad physical health, your emotional worries, your personal troubles.
I will prove that a great conducting career is expecting me.
When working with an orchestra, you never spend more than 20 minutes per recording session.
I was married at 16, a father at 17 and divorced at 18.
The atmosphere of the theater is my oxygen.
Every three days on average, I am alone on stage, facing the public.
This circus games aspect has existed since the beginning of my career.
With my personal preparation at the piano, I can afford to hum at half voice.
When a young artist is ready, one has to bring him into the limelight.
Let us be clear: I take ten times more money for a concert than for an opera performance.
Don't you think it astonishing that, at 58, I am still working at improving my career?
I feel like a little boy who is constantly offered new toys.
My strength is my enthusiasm.
When facing symphonic orchestras which have played some works five thousands times, you have nothing to do.
Singing becomes a form of therapy.
But enough joking. I am singing. This is all my life.
When I was a young man, I was a baritone, very far from possessing the whole range of the tenor then.
Young singers are much better educated musically, much better informed, through discs and videos, than I was.
In the last century, everybody was singing lower.
I attended less than two years of Conservatory in Mexico City.
I am never wrong when it comes to my possibilities.
If money was my only motivation, I would organize myself differently.
We all have a destiny in accordance with the breadth of our shoulders. My shoulders are broad.
The high note is not the only thing.
It is strange, but nobody is shocked when pop singers make a fortune in the space of two years.
The press regularly proclaims my ambitions and my financial demands.
Should it happen tomorrow, I would fall to my knees to give thanks to God for such a career.
This season, over eight productions, I am presenting four young tenors.
When you are confronted with an opera, you have to keep an eye on everything: the musicians, the chorus, the ballet, the singers, the staging.
What is sad is not to be able to do today what you have done in your youth. But what is good is to remember that - when you were able - you did it to the best of your ability.
When it becomes clear that no one else shares your level of passion, you are where you belong.
I hope I have given back half the joy music has given me.
Sometimes pianists try to sound like singers: me personally, I try to sound like a Bösendorfer.