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.
Domingo in June 2019
Seventeen-year-old Plácido Domingo as the tenor Rafael the bullfighter in El gato montés with Rosa Maria Montes (Mexico City, 1958)
Domingo made his debut in Verdi's Otello at Bellas Artes in the comprimario rôle of Cassio in 1962
Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, where Domingo began his operatic career
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder, and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.
Original poster, depicting the death of Scarpia
Punch cartoon depicting the end of Sardou's La Tosca, 1888
The Battle of Marengo, as painted by Louis-François Lejeune
The Te Deum scene which concludes act 1; Scarpia stands at left. Photograph of a pre-1914 production at the old Metropolitan Opera House, New York