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Three Tenors at the Forbidden City

The world's three top tenors, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras will sing in China at the Forbidden City in Beijing on Olympics Day-June 23. The concert will be open-air in the square in front of Wumen Gate, for an audience of at least 100,000. It might also be the last time the three tenors perform together on the same stage.

The three had cooperated for the 1990 World Cup in Rome, in Los Angles in 1994, and in France in 1998. These extraordinary concerts were watched worldwide by over 2 billion people, creating an unprecedented impact in the world of opera.

Sixty-five year-old Luciano Pavarotti was born in Modena (Italy) in October, 1935. He has a lyrical and perfectly clear tenor voice. His ease in singing higher parts is astonishing. Now, he lowers his voice, but he was once considered the only tenor in the world (together with Gedda) able to sing the high F (F5) contained in Bellini's Puritani score. His career has lasted over 35 years during which he sang more than 300 times as Rodolfo in Puccini's Boheme. Unconfirmed rumors say Pavarotti will retire in 2001, singing Verdi's La forza del destino.

Placido Domingo has been gifted with an exceptional flexible voice, and he learned to use it, blessed with a very good health and stamina allowing him to be on the go all the time. His greatest pleasure has always been, to use these gifts and advantages to give pleasure to others. His motto is: "If I rest, I rust."

As a singer he has appeared in 114 different roles, more than any other tenor in the annals of music. His repertoire spans from Mozart to Verdi, from Berlioz to Puccini, from Wagner to Ginastera. He was born in 1941 in Madrid. He is one of the most decorated and honored artists today and he has been called the "King of opera," originally the banner headline on the cover of Newsweek Magazine.

One of contemporary opera's most celebrated figures, Jose Carreras is perhaps best known for being one of the Three Tenors, a distinction he shares with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Born on December 5, 1946, in the Spanish region of Catalonia, Carreras gifts were recognized at a young age. As a child he recorded with Mario Lanza and Giuseppe di Stefano. By the time he was 11, he was making his operatic debut as the narrator in de Falla's Master Peter's Puppet Show.

In 1976, Carreras sang Verdi's Requiem at the Salzburg Easter Festival at the invitation of Herbert Von Karajan; performances and recordings of various works followed, and over time the maestro and the tenor cultivated a remarkably strong artistic bond. Over the course of his career, Carreras recorded more than 50 complete operas and 40 classical and popular recitals. He also published an autobiography, Jose Carreras, Singing from the Soul, detailing his battle with leukemia.

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