Plácido Domingo Sang 149th Career Role in 2017-2018 Met Opera’s Luisa Miller

Summary: Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo sang his 149th career role in the 2017-2018 Met Opera season’s Luisa Miller by Giuseppe Verdi.

Plácido Domingo marked the 149th role of his lengthy operatic career in the fatherly baritone role in the Met Opera 2017-2018 season’s staging of Verdi’s Luisa Miller: Placido Domingo @PlacidoDomingo, via Twitter March 29, 2018

Spanish opera singer and conductor Plácido Domingo sang his 149th career role in the 2017-2018 Met Opera season’s Luisa Miller, the 15th of 28 completed operas by 19th century Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi (Oct. 10, 1813-Jan. 27, 1901).

Domingo appeared as Miller, father of the title role’s daughter, Luisa Miller, in all seven of the 2017-2018 Met Opera’s performances of Verdi’s tragic melodrama. Domingo’s 149th career role took place during the baritone stage of his operatic career.

The 2017-2018 Met Opera season’s staging of Luisa Miller marked the third season of Met Opera casting in the opera for Plácido Domingo. His two previous seasonal performances, however, were in the lead tenor role as Rodolfo, Luisa Miller’s aristocratic lover.

Domingo debuted Nov. 4, 1971, as Rodolfo in the Metropolitan Opera’s 27th performance of Luisa Miller. He reprised the tenor role during the 1978-1979 Met Opera season’s staging.

In the 2017-2018 Met Opera season, Plácido Domingo also performed as a conductor. He conducted all six performances of Roméo et Juliette by 19th century French composer Charles-François Gounod (June 17, 1818-Oct. 18, 1893).

Domingo added conducting to his musical resumé with his October 1973 debut as conductor of Verdi’s La Traviata at the New York City Opera. His Metropolitan Opera conducting debut took place Oct. 22, 1984, during the opera house’s 884th performance of La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini (Dec. 22, 1858-Nov. 29, 1924).

The Spanish opera singer switched from tenor roles to baritone roles in 2009. He debuted his first post-tenor retirement role as a baritone Oct. 24, 2009, at Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin State Opera) in Berlin, northeastern Germany. Domingo sang the title role in Staatsoper Berlin’s premiere of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.

Domingo debuted his new baritone role at the Metropolitan Opera during the opera house’s 2009-2010 season. Opening night Jan. 18, 2010, marked Metropolitan Opera’s 129th performance of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. He reprised the baritone role during the 2015-2016 Met Opera season.

Domingo’s close association with the Metropolitan Opera dates back to his Metropolitan Opera debut Sept. 28, 1968. He debuted in the lead tenor role as Maurizio in the Metropolitan Opera’s 16th performance of Adriana Lecouvreur by Italian composer Francesco Cilea (July 23, 1866-Nov. 20, 1950).

Domingo’s original operatic debut was as a baritone. His baritone debut took place in Mexico in 1957. He debuted in Gigantes y Cabezudos (Giants and Big Heads), an 1898 zarzuela (a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre blending dance, opera, popular music, spoken scenes) by Spanish composer Manuel Fernández Caballero (March 14, 1835-Feb. 26, 1906).

Plácido Domingo traces his operatic debut as a tenor to the Mexico National Opera’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto at Palacio de Béllas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City. He debuted Sept. 23, 1959, in the minor tenor role of courtier Matteo Borsa.

Domingo’s operatic debut in a leading role took place May 19, 1961, at Teatro María Tereza Montoya in Monterrey, Nuevo León, northwestern Mexico. He appeared in the lead tenor role as Alfredo Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata.

He also had an early debut as an operatic bass singer at Mexico City’s Teatro Jorge Negrete. His bass debut occurred Dec. 14, 1958, as Xinxunxan in Eréndira by Guadalajaran composer Luis Mendoza López.

The Madrid-born opera singer and conductor is of Basque descent from his mother, Pepita Enbil Etxaniz, and of half-Catalan, half-Aragonese descent from his father, Plácido Domingo Ferrer. His birthplace is the Barrio de Salamanca district of Madrid, central Spain.

Domingo was raised in a musical environment. Both of his parents were zarzuela performers.

The takeaway for Plácido Domingo singing his 149th Career Role in 2017-2018 Met Opera’s Luisa Miller are that the career role milestone occurred in the baritone phase of his lengthy operatic career and that he appeared in two previous Met Opera season (1970-1971, 1978-1979) stagings of Luisa Miller as Luisa’s aristocratic lover in the tenor phase of his career.

Plácido Domingo debuted as a baritone Jan. 18, 2010, in the title role of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Metropolitan Opera and reprised the baritone role during the 2015-2016 Met Opera season; Plácido Domingo in the title role with Lianna Hroutounian as Amelia, Simon’s actual granddaughter, during the 2015-2016 Met Opera season’s staging: Lianna Haroutounian‏ @liannahar, via Twitter April 13, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Plácido Domingo marked the 149th role of his lengthy operatic career in the fatherly baritone role in the Met Opera 2017-2018 season’s staging of Verdi’s Luisa Miller: Placido Domingo @PlacidoDomingo, via Twitter March 29, 2018, @ https://twitter.com/PlacidoDomingo/status/979303096747782144

Plácido Domingo debuted as a baritone Jan. 18, 2010, in the title role of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Metropolitan Opera and reprised the baritone role during the 2015-2016 Met Opera season; Plácido Domingo in the title role with Lianna Hroutounian as Amelia, Simon’s actual granddaughter, during the 2015-2016 Met Opera season’s staging: Lianna Haroutounian‏ @liannahar, via Twitter April 13, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/liannahar/status/720302810336768000

For further information:

Birgit Nilsson Foundation Press Office. “Plácido Domingo -- A Short Biography.” The Birgit Nilsson Prize > Recipient 2009.
Available @ https://birgitnilssonprize.org/recipients/recipient-2009-placido-domingo/

“Debut: Plácido Domingo.” MetOpera Database > [Met Performance] CID: 216130 Adriana Lecouvreur {16} Metropolitan Opera House: 09/28/1968.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=216130

“Debut: Plácido Domingo (Conductor).” MetOpera Database > [Met Performance] CID: 278290 La Bohème {884} Matinee ed. Metropolitan Opera House: 10/22/1984.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=278290

“Las Funciones de Plácido Domingo en México.” Pro Ópera > Pasadas > mayo-junio 2011 > Otras Voces.
Available @ http://www.proopera.org.mx/pasadas/mayjun2/otrasvoc/3otrasvoces-funcionesdepd.pdf

Kettle, Martin. “A Tenor No More: Domingo to Make Switch to Baritone.” The Guardian > World News. Jan. 25, 2007.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/25/classicalmusic.musicnews

Lianna Haroutounian‏ @liannahar. “Tonight Simon Boccanegra 4 with @PlacidoDomingo , @MalteseTenor , Ferruccio Furlanetto in @MetOpera.” Twitter. April 13, 2016.
Available @ https://twitter.com/liannahar/status/720302810336768000

Marriner, Derdriu. “Luisa Miller Is April 14, 2018, Met Opera Saturday Matinee Broadcast.” Earth and Space News. Monday, April 9, 2018.
Available @ https://twitter.com/liannahar/status/720302810336768000

Marriner, Derdriu. “Roméo et Juliette Is May 5, 2018, Met Opera Saturday Matinee Broadcast.” Earth and Space News. Monday, April 30, 2018.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/04/romeo-et-juliette-is-may-5-2018-met.html

Placido Domingo @PlacidoDomingo. “Tonight God willing I’ll be making my 149th career role debut on the stage of @MetOpera as Miller in Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece ‘Luisa Miller’ with amazing colleagues @sonyayoncheva Piotr Beczala, Olesya Petrova, Alexander Vinogradov, Dmitry Belosselskiy.” Twitter. March 29, 2018.
Available @ https://twitter.com/PlacidoDomingo/status/979303096747782144

“Plácido Domingo (Tenor).” Bach Cantatas Website > Biographies of Performers.
Available @ http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Domingo-Placido.htm

Shelley, Greta. “Plácido Domingo a los 70: ‘La ópera es lo que más me inspira.’” Pro Ópera, año XIX, numéro 3 (may0-junio 2011): 32-36. Mexico City, Mexico: Pro Ópera, A.C.
Available via Issuu @ https://issuu.com/sectorgraphico/docs/may2011

Sosa, José Octavio. “Seis décadas de Plácido Domingo en México.” Pro Ópera, año XIX, numéro 3 (may0-junio 2011): 46-53. Mexico City, Mexico: Pro Ópera, A.C.
Available via Issuu @ https://issuu.com/sectorgraphico/docs/may2011

Woolfe, Zachary. “Review: Plácido Domingo Takes On a New Role at the Met Opera. (His 149th.).” The New York Times > Arts > Music. April 1, 2018.
Available @ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/review-placido-domingo-met-opera-luisa-miller.html

Wurzel, Christoph. “Simon Boccanegra: Das Musikdrama zum Kostümschinken degradiert.” OMM Online Musik Magazin > Veranstaltungen > Musiktheater 2009 / 2010 > Premieren und weitere Aufführungen in der Spielzeit 2009 / 2010.
Available @ http://www.omm.de/veranstaltungen/musiktheater20092010/B-so-simon-boccanegra.html