Placido Domingo at the BBC

Just lift up so I can see the light there.

-Now, a perfectly ordinary set of tonsils, Placido.

-No!

There is only one Placido Domingo.

# Tro-lo-lo!

With his warm-timbred voice

and high musical intelligence,

the Spanish-born Domingo has conquered the world's stages

for over half a century.

Championing a broad and diverse repertoire,

few, if any, have performed in more roles or given more performances.

Domingo IS Mr Opera.

# Vicino al... #

In this programme, four decades of highlights from Domingo's career,

in all manner of shows from the BBC archive.

From the heroics of Verdi

to the pathos of Henry Mancini.

# Moon river, wider than a mile

# I'm crossing you in style some day... #

We'll discover his abiding love of football.

There's his passion for Wagner.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

His work in cinema.

HE SINGS

And his love of Spanish operetta - Zarzuela.

# No puede ser

# Esa mujer es buena

# No puede ser, un mujer... #

And in his later years, a whole new repertoire,

as Domingo's voice dropped from tenor to baritone.

# Plebe! Patrizi!

# Popolo

# Dalla feroce storia! #

Domingo's legacy is unsurpassed.

With his Latin good looks, his drive and generosity of spirit,

he is the greatest tenor of his age.

HE SINGS AND PLAYS A SCALE

What are you doing when you do that? You were warming up, obviously.

Yes, warming up. I am trying to, you know, round the throat,

if there's any kind of tight muscles, then they get really loose.

-How long will you go on doing that kind of thing for?

-It depends.

For Domingo, television has always been a key medium

in encouraging newcomers to opera.

Here he is in 1971. He was 29,

and in a specially-staged studio performance.

# Celeste Aida

# Forma Divina

# Mistico serto

# Di luce e fior

# Del mio pensiero

# Tu sei regina

# Tu di mia vita sei lo splendor

# Il tuo bel cielo vorrei redarti

# Le dolci brezze del patrio suol

# Un regal serta sul crin posarti

# Ergerti un trono

# Vicino il sol

# O, celeste Aida

# Forma divina

# Mistico certo

# Di luce e fior

# Del mio pensiero

# Tu sei regina

# Tu di mia vita sei lo splendor

# Il tuo bel cielo vorrei redarti

# Le dolce brezze del patrio suol

# Un regal serta aul crin posarti

# Ergerti un trono

# Vicino al sol

# Un trono vicino al sol

# Un trono vicino al sol! #

But you never had a singing teacher anyway?

Not a proper one, no. I don't. I wasn't that lucky to find one.

-Now, this was in Spain in the 1950s when you started singing.

-Yes.

But no, but rather in Mexico, because I was born in Madrid,

but a period of my life I spent in Mexico was around

'57, '58, and I started interest in singing.

How do you actually produce the voice?

Is it a secret you can't explain?

Is it something that gets handed on from one tenor to the other?

-How does it work?

-It is very difficult to explain.

I don't think I could actually explain that.

It is just a feeling of, um, that you are producing a sound

and you are supporting here, the diaphragm, you know?

I have the feeling, I tell you, I have the feeling like hitting,

it is just like hitting a ball.

APPLAUSE

Despite having no formal training, Domingo holds the record

for the longest standing ovation on the operatic stage.

Vienna, 1991.

101 curtain calls and 80 minutes of applause.

# Granada, tierra sonada por mi

# Mi cantar, se vuelve gitano cuando es para ti

# Mi cantar, hecho de fantasia

# Mi cantar, flor de melancolia

# Que yo te vengo a dar

# Granada, tierra ensangrentada en tarde de toros

# Mujer que conserva el embrujo de los ojos moros

# De sueno rebelde gitana cubierta de flores

# Y beso tu boca de grana

# Jugosa manzana que me habla de amores

# Granada, manola cantada en coplas preciosas

# No tengo otra cosa que darte que un ramo de rosas

# De rosas de suave fragancia

# Que le dieran marco a la Virgen morena

# Granada tu tierra esta llena

# De lindas mujeres de sangre y de sol

# Granada

# Tu tierra est llena

# De lindas mujeres de sangre y de sol! #

APPLAUSE

At the age of 29,

the Spanish-born singer Placido Domingo has already achieved

the remarkable feat of soaring to the top of the tree on which

romantic tenors grow. How do you set about studying a new role?

Yes, I sit at the piano, and I play the score.

And after I play three or four times the score, I know the opera.

# Caro elisir, sei mio

# Si, tutto mio

# Com'esser de possente, la tua virtu

# Se non bevuto ancora

# Di tanto gioia

# Gia mi colmi il petto!

# Ma perche mai l'effetto

# Non ne poss'io vedere

# Prima che un giorno inter non sia trascorso?

# Bevasi

# O qual di vena in vena

# Dolce calor mi scorre!

# Ah, forse anch'essa

# Forse la fiammo istessa

# Incomincia a sentir

# Certo la sente

# Me l'annunzia la gioia

# E l'appetito

# Che in me si risveglio

# Tutto ad un tratto

# Lallarallara, la, la, la, la! #

For somebody so young,

there are a lot of legends which have built up around you.

For instance, did you really pick up your leading lady in your arms

and hold her, right throughout a duet?

Yeah, that's right.

You know, in the fourth act of Traviata when Alfredo arrives,

he comes back to Violetta, and they sing,

they are very happy to see each other. They kiss, they embrace.

And of course, because she's sick, she's very weak,

she practically collapse, and then he always, you know,

bring her either walking to the bed or to a sofa, you know,

just to sing the beautiful duet, Parigi O Cara, you know?

So, in that moment, I don't know where

the stage director was going to place the duet,

so I just picked her in my arms and I was there, and I said,

"Where?" And by that time, the music starts, you know?

So I started, # Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo... #

So I was, you know, rocking her in my arms.

And he said, "That's terrific! Let's do it!"

I said, "What do you mean, let's do it?"

I said, "Where shall I put her?" And he said, "No, in your arms!"

"What?!" So then we tried, just for a joke.

So I tried it in the rehearsal and I realised I can do it, so we did it.

And we did the production like that.

# Parigi, o cara

# Noi lasceremo

# La vita uniti trascorreremo

# De' corsi affanni

# Compenso avrai

# La tua salute rifiorira

# Sospiro e luce tu mi sarai

# Tutto il futuro

# Ne arridera

# Parigi o caro, noi lasceremo

# La vita uniti trascorreremo

# De' corsi affanni compenso avrai

# La mia salute rifiorira

# Sospiro e luce tu mi sarai

# Tutto il futuro

# Ne arridera

# Parigi, o cara noi lasceremo

THEY HARMONISE

# La vita uniti trascorreremo... #

THEY HARMONISE INTRICATELY

# De' corsi affanni compenso avrai

# La tua salute rifiorira

# Rifiorira

# Parigi o cara, noi lasceremo... #

THEY HARMONISE INTRICATELY

# La vita uniti trascorreremo... #

THEY HARMONISE INTRICATELY

# De corsi affani compenso avrai

# La tua salute rifiorira

BOTH: # Rifiorira

# Rifiorira

# De' corsi affanni

# De' corsi affanni compenso avrai

# De' corsi affanni compenso avrai

# La tua salute

BOTH: # Rifiorira

# Rifiorira. #

-You're a family man.

-Yeah.

Now, this is a great problem, of course, for any musician

moving about all over the world, with children, particularly, as you have.

What do you do? Do the children travel with you?

Do they stay in one place, or what?

We try to keep together as much as we can.

I think that children are wonderful and the family is a beautiful thing,

because it makes you have something else to worry and to concern you.

Not only the singing.

I don't think I'd be able to live just with the worry of singing, you know?

So I mean, I don't care, even if I have to sing,

if I am resting a little bit,

and one of the children cries or something like that, it makes me

think that there are some other things in life, not only the career.

And probably things are easier that way.

APPLAUSE

Domingo appeared on the Parkinson show three times.

Here he is singing Be My Love - always associated with Mario Lanza,

who Domingo credits for his own love of opera.

# Be my love

# For no-one else can end this yearning

# This need that you and you alone create

# Just fill my arms the way you've filled my dreams,

# The dreams that you inspire

# With every sweet desire

# Be my love

# And with your kisses set me burning

# One kiss is all I need to seal my fate

# And, hand-in-hand

# We'll find love's promised land

# There'll be no-one but you for me

# Eternally

# If you will be my love

And hand-in-hand, we'll find a promised land

# There'll be no-one but you for me

# Eternally

# If you will be

# My love. #

APPLAUSE

Placido, I didn't realise that you were once a pianist in a nightclub.

-Oh, yes, that was one of the things I did, musically.

-Yes.

What kind of a pianist were you?

-HE LAUGHS

-A lousy one!

LAUGHTER

Besides that, no, I was playing the piano for another singer,

a baritone, and we were in a peculiar kind of a nightclub.

And after our number it was coming a girl,

with very light in clothes, you know? Let's put it that way.

And whenever he was going to start to sing, they said,

"We don't want to hear to you, we want the girl."

And he said, "Let me just sing three songs,

"otherwise they are going to throw me out, and I need to sing."

And most of the time when I was singing,

when I was playing the piano, very inspired, with my eyes closed.

"And you, playing the piano, you seem so inspired, please hurry up,

"we want to see the girl, you know?" So that was my piano playing!

You told me about opera singers. They are notoriously superstitious people.

One hears lots and lots of tales about various superstitions

that opera singers have.

Do you have any sort of ritual that you go through before a performance?

Well, I have some kind of, I suppose,

more than superstitions, it's a religious kind of feeling.

Before I do a performance, I have a pray to Santa Cecilia,

which is the patron of the music.

And I pray to her to be able to make justice to the composers,

to the genius who has wrote these works.

You know, not for vanity and so on. And I feel very relieved, praying.

And, after the performance,

I have to be the last one leaving my dressing room.

And, in the very last performance in that city,

I have to go on the stage

and sing the phrases I will be singing in my next trip to

that city, like, I don't know, like, thanking God to be there

and hoping to come back to the same place again.

# M'appari tutt' amor

# Il mio sguardo l'incontro

# Bella si che il mio cor

# Ansioso a lei volo

# Mi feri, m'invaghi

# Quell'angelica belta

# Sculta in cor dall'amor cancellarsi non potra

# Il pensier di poter palpitar con lei d'amor

# Puo sopir il martir che m'affana

# E strazia il cor

# E strazia il cor

# M'appari

# Tutt'amor

# Il mio sguardo l'incontro

# Bella si che il mio cor

# Ansioso a lei volo

# Marta, Marta, tu sparisti

# E il mio cor col tuo n'ando!

# Tu la pace mi rapisti

# Di dolor io moriro!

# Di dolor io moriro

# Si, moriro! #

Now, Placido, it's Christmas and the BBC, at almost any expense,

will grant you a Christmas wish, I'm authorised to say!

-What would your wish be?

-Well, I'll tell you.

Working so hard, I hardly have time to do some sports, but I love them

and I used to do a lot. Of course, swimming like everybody, and tennis.

But my dream was really to be a football player.

And I would be so thrilled if I could, you know,

meet Kevin Keegan and even play with him.

Ah, there you are, Mr Domingo. I've been looking everywhere for you.

-I've been to Shepherd's Bush, the theatre.

-Such a pleasure to see you.

I watched you once in Barcelona. We want you so badly to play there.

And I thought you were not going to come today?

Yeah, well, the chance to sing on your show,

I just couldn't miss that.

Did you want to sing?

-Yes, I really do, yeah.

-Yes, but first we do something.

First of all, you call me Placido and I call you Kevin, OK?

OK, Mr Placido.

No "Mr Placido", no. Placido, OK?

And then, I guess I have been a frustrated football player,

so, shall we play football?

-What, here?

-Just right here, why not?

Nothing easier. Kindly step this way, gentlemen.

In my times, they don't use gloves.

Oh, I say! What a save there.

You have to be extraordinarily fit to do what you do, don't you?

Well, yes, you have to keep in good health and good training.

It is very exhausting, the life.

Today I have been in stage in Covent Garden

since ten o'clock this morning

and rehearsing the whole day.

Every morning when you have the orchestra, you have to be prepared.

The opera, you sing every four days,

maybe you sing it two times and one rehearsal, maybe.

Yes.

I think I'm giving up football, Mr Domingo. Placido.

It's nothing. You won't give up football ever, I mean,

but if you like to try maybe another sport.

You were amazing there.

But you know, I think I'd better keep up singing, you know?

But you know, BBC now has asked me also,

and they will be very, very happy, do you have any wish for Christmas?

Well, what I'd really wish to do is to see whether I can play

the first part of the accompaniment to your next song, Placido.

Mattinata by Leoncavallo, who wrote, of course, Pagliacci, which is

another great Domingo opera, yes?

OK, good!

HE PLAYS FLUENTLY

# L'aurora di bianco vestita

# Gia' l'uscio dischiude al gran sol

# Di gia' con le rosee sue dita

# Carezza de' fiori lo stuol!

# Commosso da un fremito arcano

# Intorno il creato gia' par

# E tu non ti desti, ed invano

# Mi sto qui dolente a cantar

# Metti anche tu la veste bianca

# E schiudi l'uscio al tuo cantor!

# Ove non sei la luce manca

# Ove tu sei nasce l'amor

# Mette anche tu

# La veste bianca

# E schiudi l'uscio al tuo cantor

# Ove none sei la luce manca

# Ove tu sei nasce l'amor! #

For me, a melody like Mr Mancini or Andrew Lloyd Webber, I think that it

has the quality, the melody, the quality of any lieder, it could be any lieder by Schubert.

The only thing that is different, perhaps, is the treatment,

the harmony, and the rhythm,

as you were explaining before, it used to be every four beats,

then it was every two beats, then every beat, you know?

So, that's the only thing they change,

but the pure melodic line, you know, you can find it

as much in Schubert, just like many of our great composers today.

APPLAUSE

A highlight of Domingo's Parkinson appearances

was performing with the film composer, Henry Mancini,

famous for a host of soundtracks, including Breakfast at Tiffany's.

# Moon river, wider than a mile

# I'm crossing you in style some day

# Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

# Wherever you're going, I'm going your way

# Two drifters, off to see the world

# There's such a lot of world to see

# We're after the same rainbow's end

# Waiting round the bend

# My huckleberry friend

# Moon river and me

# Two drifters, off to see the world

# There's such a lot of world to see

# We're after the same rainbow's end

# Waiting round the bend

# My huckleberry friend

# Moon river and me. #

APPLAUSE

The nurse, the nurse here, please.

For the last 12 months, the Italian director, Franco Zeffirelli,

has been making a feature film of Verdi's Opera, Otello.

In a style that has become familiar to audiences of La Traviata

and Pagliacci, he's transformed one of the great

works of lyric theatre into a spectacular cinema entertainment.

# Or la folgor lo svela

-# Uno squillo!

-Uno squillo!

# Ha tuonato il cannon!

# La nave del Duce

# Or s'affonda... #

The soundtrack was pre-recorded at the Milan Conservatory with

the Spanish tenor, Placido Domingo, singing Otello

and the chorus and orchestra of La Scala, Milan,

under the baton of the American conductor, Lorin Maazel.

# Evviva!

# Esultate!

# L'orgoglio musulmano sepolto in mar

# Nostra e del ciel e gloria

# Dopo l'armi lo vinse l'uragano

# Evviva Otello!

# Evviva! Evviva! Evviva!

# Vittoria! Vittoria! Vittoria! #

The filming is divided between locations

scattered round the Mediterranean and the studio in Rome.

HE SINGS

Sometimes, you try to underplay for the camera

because of the stage being so absolutely violent

and so absolutely bigger than life because 3,000 people have to see it.

So your gestures are bigger and so on.

But he's letting me... letting me use the dramatist.

He will rather let me go too far than too little, you know?

Sometimes he controls me in the moment, but he really let me

express myself.

# No puede ser

# Esa mujer es buena

# No puede ser una mujer malvada

# En su mirar como una luz singular

# He visto que esa mujer es una desventurada

# No puede ser una vulgar sirena

# Que enveneno las horas de mi vida

# No puede ser

# Porque la vi rezar

# Porque la vi querer

# Porque la vi llorar

# Los ojos que lloran no saben mentir

# Las malas mujeres no miran asi

# Temblando en sus ojos dos lagrimas vi

# Y a mi me ilusiona que tiemblen por mi

# Que tiemblen por mi

# Viva luz de mi ilusion

# Se piadosa con mi amor

# Porque no se fingir

# Porque no se callar

# Porque no se vivir. #

APPLAUSE

BELL CHIMES

Welcome to Prague, capital of Czechoslovakia.

It's St Nicholas Eve,

it's the beginning of Christmas.

What a special Christmas it is.

This time last year, only weeks after the revolution, Czechoslovakia

was savouring its first heady but still uncertain draughts of freedom.

Placido Domingo has just flown in from Vienna

especially for tonight's concert.

My first rehearsal with so much public.

It's been quite sensational for me to be able to sing something for

the very first time in my life, to rehearse in front of 2,000 people.

I didn't know how to take it at the beginning.

When I arrived, I said, "How am I going to say,

"everybody out because I need to rehearse?"

They said, "No way, you know."

# Zdravas Maria

# Milosti plna

# Zdravas Maria

# Milosti plna

# Pan s tebou

# Pan s tebou

# Pozehnana si

# Medzi zenami

# A pozehnanyy

# Je plod zivota Tvojho Jezis

# Plod zivota Tvojho Jezis

CHORUS SINGS

# Svata Maria

# Svata Maria

# Matka Bozia

# Matka Bozia

# Pros za nas hriesnych

# I v hodinu smrti nasej

# Amen

# Amen

# Amen. #

Domingo's sung in festivals and at theatres

around the world,

but it's hard to believe that it wasn't until 2005

that he finally got to make his debut at the BBC Proms,

singing his beloved Wagner.

That's amazing. You know, after 33 years singing at Royal Opera

there were sometimes invitations across the years,

but they were never made with enough time.

And this was just by chance.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

For opera lovers, Placido Domingo's first appearance in Britain

as a baritone in 2010 was an eagerly awaited event.

He took the title role in one of Verdi's great masterpieces.

Simon Boccanegra.

It is one of the more demanding roles as a singer, an actor,

combination of singer and actor, in the baritone repertoire.

And I thought before I retire I want to do it.

# Ch'or sorride all'alma mia... #

I am very, very happy.

I really loved the role very, very deeply

even more than I thought

when I was thinking and dreaming about doing it.

-Could I just pause there?

-Yeah.

It's not part of the argument. It's not angry.

# O, crudele... #

-Just stretch it out.

-OK. Yeah, I know.

There are operas that I used to sing before that I wouldn't do today

because of the tessitura or the voice

because of changing and repertoire, styles.

And I have always been very much curious about finding new things,

and so that's the reason I'm still doing a career which I love.

It is the variety of all those different groups.

# Ch'ei t'oda...

-# Prostrarmi al suo piede?

-Vien!

# Ecco il petto... Colpisci, sleale! #

I don't pretend to be a baritone,

but I do the Boccanegra with my voice

and I think it has the sufficient dark colour

which I have been used to do, singing Otello

and singing some of the Wagnerian repertoire.

It's a little bit like a painter.

You have the palette there and you have all the different colours

and you put them together.

# Plebe! Patrizi!

# Popolo

# Dalla feroce storia!

# Erede sol dell'odio

# Dei Spinola e dei Doria

# Mentre v'invita estatico

# Il regno ampio dei mari

# Voi nei fraterni lari

# Vi lacerate il cuor

# Piango su voi, sul placido

# Raggio del vostro clivo

# La dove invan germoglia

# Il ramo dell'ulivo

# Piango sulla mendace

# Festa dei vostri fior

# E vo gridando: pace!

# E vo gridando: amor!

# E vo gridando: amor! #

What for you are the big challenges?

Pagliacci, for instance, is one role that I particularly care for it.

I really love it very deeply.

-And...

-Why?

Well, I believe the purpose of this man and...

Just the fact, just for the phrase

that the baritone said in the opera is...

"Siam uomini di carne e d'ossa."

Then we are men made of flesh and bones.

So, the fact...it can put you in the position

then the show must go on, you know?

So, then every other performer will feel...

And it doesn't matter

what is your feelings that day, which way you feel,

what is going on with your mind,

when you have to perform, you have to do it.

# Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio!

# Non so piu quel che dico

# E quel che faccio!

# Eppur e d'uopo sforzati!

# Bah! Sei tu forse un uom? #

HE SOBS

# Tu sei Pagliaccio!

# Vesti la giubba

# Ela faccia infarina

# La gente paga e rider vuole qua

# E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina

# Ridi, Pagliaccio E ognun applaudira!

# Tramuta in lazzi

# Lo spasmo ed il pianto

# In una smorfia il singhiozzo

# E'l dolor! Ah!

# Ridi, Pagliaccio

# Sul tuo amore infranto

# Ridi del duol che t'avvelena il cor. #

Placido Domingo.

Actor, singer, footballer,

just a few moments covering a truly remarkable career

as he strides like a colossus through the world's opera houses

and concert halls, seducing generation after generation

of music lovers.