Josep Maria Carreras Coll better known as José Carreras, 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. 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.
