Up for auction “Operatic Tenor” Jose Carraras Hand Signed 8.5x11 Print. This item is authenticated By Todd
Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity. ES - 7023 Josep
Maria Carreras Coll (Catalan: [ʒuˈzɛb məˈɾi.ə kəˈreɾəs ˈkɔʎ]; born 5 December 1946), better
known as José Carreras (/kəˈrɛərəs/, Spanish: [xoˈse kaˈreɾas]), is a Spanish operatic tenor who
is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. Born
in Barcelona, he made his debut on the operatic stage at 11 as
Trujamán in Manuel de Falla's El retablo de Maese Pedro, and
went on to a career that encompassed over 60 roles, performing in the world's
leading opera houses and on numerous recordings. He gained fame with a wider
audience as one of the Three Tenors,
with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, in a series of large concerts from 1990 to
2003. He is also known for his humanitarian work as president of the José Carreras
International Leukaemia Foundation (La Fundació
Internacional Josep Carreras per a la Lluita contra la Leucèmia), which he
established following his own recovery from the disease in 1988. 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.[3] 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.
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. |