Early years Carreras was born in
Sants, a working-class district in
Barcelona. He was the youngest of Antònia Coll i Saigi and Josep Carreras i Soler's three children. In 1951, his family emigrated to
Argentina in search of a better life. However, this move abroad proved unsuccessful, and within a year they had returned to Sants where Carreras was to spend the rest of his childhood and teenage years. , December 1954.|304x304px He showed an early talent for music and particularly singing, which intensified at the age of six when he saw
Mario Lanza in
The Great Caruso. 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. 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 eight, he also started taking music lessons at Barcelona's Municipal Conservatory. At just eight years old, 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. On 3 January 1958, at the age of eleven, 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 "backup" 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 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 fifteen 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. in the film
Romanza Final (1986) 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 Cotrubaș,
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 thirteen 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. 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. 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
Aida,
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. The recording of
West Side Story was unusual in two respects: Carreras was chosen and conducted by
Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein was conducting for the first time nearly 30 years after he composed the music, and
a full-length documentary was made about the recording sessions. In a now-viral clip, the star tenor had problems with the syncopated rhythms and elocution in his solo on
''Something's Coming and was relentlessly corrected by Bernstein. 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.
1990–present , 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 operatic performances at the
Gran Teatre del Liceu, the opera house where his career began, were in
Samson et Dalila (March 2001). He reprised the title role in
Sly in Tokyo in 2002 and in 2004 performed at the
Vienna State Opera in fully staged versions of the final act of
Carmen and Act 3 of
Sly. In April 2014, Carreras returned to the opera stage after a ten-year absence singing the title role of Christian Kolonovits's opera,
El Juez (The Judge) in its premiere at the Arriaga Theatre in
Bilbao. He reprised the role in August 2014 at the Festival Erl in Austria and in January 2015 at the
Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. 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. It is estimated that over a billion people around the world watched the television broadcast of the 1994 Three Tenors concert in Los Angeles. 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. Carreras is the center of a subplot in the 1996 episode "
The Doll" in the
Seinfeld television series, in which he is never referred to by name but instead as "the other guy" in the Three Tenors; he is erroneously referred to as being Italian (perhaps intentionally). The early 1990s also saw Carreras serving as the Musical Director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Barcelona
Olympic Games, and performing in a worldwide concert tour in tribute to his first singing hero,
Mario Lanza. By the 2000s Carreras's recording and live concert repertoire had moved largely to
art song,
Neapolitan songs, the light classical genre, and 'easy-listening'. He has also increasingly performed and recorded with artists from outside the classical music world, such as
Diana Ross,
Edyta Górniak,
Lluís Llach,
Peter Maffay,
Udo Jürgens,
Klaus Meine,
Charles Aznavour,
Kim Styles,
Sarah Brightman,
Vicky Leandros,
Jackie Evancho,
Sissel Kyrkjebø,
Debbie Harry,
Majida El Roumi, and
Giorgia Fumanti. Beginning in 2002, Carreras scaled back his live performances to recitals and orchestral concerts. In an interview published in
The Times on 8 May 2009, Carreras announced that he would no longer perform principal opera roles but was still open to recitals.
Humanitarian work Following his own recovery from
leukaemia, Carreras sought both to repay the debt he owed to medical science and to improve the lives and care of other leukaemia sufferers. On 14 July 1988, he established the Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras per a la Lluita contra la Leucèmia (known in English as the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation) 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 leukaemia through scholarships and research grants. • Campaigns to increase bone marrow and
cord blood donation for leukaemia 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 Carreras has received numerous awards and distinctions for both his artistic and humanitarian work. These include: Knight Grand Cross (First Class) of the Most Exalted
Order of the White Elephant of Thailand (2019); Commander of the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier of the
Légion d'honneur (France); Knight Grand Cross and
Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (20 May 1996 and 3 April 1991, respectively);
Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (1999); the Cruz de Oro del Orden Civil de la Solidaridad Social from
Queen Sofia of Spain, the
Prince of Asturias Prize for Art (joint winner, 1991), the
Grand Cross of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany and the
Gold Medal of the Generalitat of Catalonia (June 1984). Carreras has received the
Bavarian Order of Merit, the
Steiger Award (2006) and the St. George Order of the
Semperoper (
Dresden, 2010). Honorary Medal of the city of
Leipzig on the occasion of his Leukemia Fundraiser for 2009 on 17 December 2009; awarded by the Mayor of Leipzig (unanimous decision of the town council of Leipzig). In 1993 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from
Loughborough University. On 23 February 2004, the Austrian Post Office issued a 1
€ stamp to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his debut at the
Vienna Staatsoper. In 2004, he received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement. In 2009, he received the
Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. 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, 3 May 2006);
University of Saarland (2012); 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.
Family Throughout his childhood in Barcelona, Carreras's father, Josep Carreras i Soler, worked as a traffic policeman. He had originally been a French teacher. However, he had fought on the Republican side during the
Spanish Civil War, and when the
Franco government came into power in 1939, he was no longer allowed to teach. His mother, Antonia Coll i Saigi, ran a small hair-dressing salon, where, as a child, Carreras often sang to the customers in return for pocket money. He was very close to his mother, who was convinced that he would one day be a great singer, and her death from cancer when he was 18 affected him greatly. In
José Carreras: A Life Story, he said that "even now, every time I go on stage, I always, always, have a quick thought for her." In 1971 Carreras married Mercedes Pérez. They had two children: a son, Albert (born in 1972), and a daughter, Julia (born in 1978). The marriage ended in divorce in 1992. In 2006, Carreras married Jutta Jäger, but separated from her in 2011. Carreras's nephew,
David Giménez Carreras, is a conductor and Director of the
Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès. He has conducted many of Carreras's concerts since the late 1990s as well as his opera performances in
Sly at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in June 2000. ==Voice==