Placido, Carreras and Friendship

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 07:10:46 -0700

Update: It was brought to my attention that this story is not real.
I leave it here as an example of well crafted web legend.

The Spanish Catalans and the Madridians are longtime enemies. Basically, the Catalans are aspiring to get autonomy from Spain which is ruled from Madrid.

Placido Domingo was born in Madrid. Jose Carreras is Catalan. Both are among the worlds leading tenors.

image: Carreras, Domingo and a friend - Pavarotti

In 1984 Domingo and Carreras became enemies because of political reasons.

Both gentlemen are very popular performers worldwide. Both have put a clause in their contracts that say they will be willing to perform as long as the opponent won't appear on the same show.

In 1987 Carreras has acquired a much fiercer enemy than Placido Doming. Carreras got cancer.

Carreras went through a series of treatment including marrow bone implant, radiotherapy and more. The treatments were done in the US. Carreras had to travel to the US monthly and stopped performing.
The cost of treatments and travel have diluted his resources up to the point where he could no longer afford the treatments. At the time it became known to Carrereas that a non-profit association in Madrid helps leukemia patients finance their treatments. Thanks to the help of the association Carreras continued the treatments until he recovered completely.

When he got better off financially, Carreras tried to become a donor to the association that had helped him.
Accidentally while reading the association documents, he has found out that the greatest donor, president and founder is no other than his old enemy Placido Domingo.
He also discovered that Domingo founded the association to help him, and did it anonymously to prevent the humiliation of Carreras, getting help from his old enemy.

The emotional meeting between the two happened during Placido Domingo's concert in Madrid where Carreras stopped Domingo in the middle of the show, kneeled and asked for his forgiveness in front of the audience. It was a beginning of a beautiful friendship.

In a later interview, Domingo was asked what made him start the association that helped his number one enemy. Domingo replied "I wanted to prevent the loss of such incredible voice"

CoMagz Citizen journalist's column

Placido, Carreras and Friendship