He was never exactly in the vanguard of new writing, but the news of José Carreras' return to opera with a new work--El Juez by Christian Kolonovits, after a story by Angelika Messner--is doubly surprising. Most surprising, perhaps, because most of us thought we'd seen the Spaniard's last complete role on an operatic stage. At 66, alas, Italianate tenors are usually only giving recitals and concerts of arias. That's the role Carreras looked to have assumed, and this will be his first complete opera since Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's Sly in 2002.
And yet, this new piece about stolen children under Franco's rule features Carreras as the titular judge--scheduled for Bilbao in April 2014. His fans will be delighted as, in fact, will most opera lovers. What happened to Carreras's voice is interesting. When younger, he possessed one of the most sheerly beautiful timbres to be heard. It was as elegant as Giuseppe Di Stefano, the great tenor he most resembled. Like his predecessor, but more so, Carreras moved into heavier repertoire, and all those Alvaros and Manricos took their toll. The beauty went (except those gorgeous high-floating pianissimos, they never left him), and a beat appeared in the voice.
Usually, that would be that. But Carreras is nothing if not a survivor--this being the man, of course, who famously beat leukemia and even resumed his singing career. And the voice developed, so that by the time he took on what became his signature role for a while, Verdi's Stiffelio, there was metal at its center, a real darkness. His romantic sound would go on to become more intense, the voice of a man who had lived and experienced. It's a bit of a shame, in a way, that The Three Tenors happened, as Carreras got diverted from a path that might have brought some great character roles.
Still, after a career that has so far yielded some great recordings (Tosca with Sir Colin Davis is a definite highlight, as is his singing in the prickly affair that was Bernstein's West Side Story) maybe that new direction will open up now. For the future, some Janáček perhaps? How about the scheming Prince Shuysky in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov?
