Tomorrow, January 21, 2011, Plácido Domingo, one of the greatest living tenors today, will celebrate his 70th birthday. With a career that has spanned nearly 50 years and the entire globe, it is no wonder that he is justifiably beloved the world over. Deutsche Grammophon has recorded Domingo since 1970 and celebrates these 40 years not only with new releases of both his existing recordings and an all-new complete opera, but also with the comprehensive website Domingo70.com. The website encourages the public to sample audio and video clips from the Deutsche Grammophon and Decca catalogs, as well as personally wish Domingo “Happy Birthday” on the artist’s Facebook page.
http://www.domingo70.com/ has been specially built by Deutsche Grammophon to give the public access to the amazing recorded legacy Domingo has on the various Universal Music labels and encourage the exploration of audio and video clips of this vast archive. From the 1970 recording of Weber’s Oberon to the all-new recording of Giordano’s Fedora, which is just now being released, the site streams clips from all currently available video and audio opera- and compilation-album recordings from DG & Decca. In addition to highlighting material from “The Plácido Domingo Story” (more information below), the site attempts to be as inclusive as possible. Such a rarity as his recording of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust with Barenboim is also included.
Starting today, fans can leave Domingo a personal birthday wish or note on his Facebook page and will be automatically entered into drawings which will take place every two weeks with the prize of a gift certificate redeemable in the http://www.dgwebshop.com/.
The statistics alone are astonishing: nearly 3,500 performances of more than 130 major tenor roles; a repertoire that includes operas by Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Mercadante, Gounod, Offenbach, Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Ponchielli, Gomes, Tchaikovsky, Boito, Massenet, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Albéniz, Mascagni, Charpentier, Giordano, Cilea, Alfano, Zandonai, Montemezzi, Moreno Torroba, Menotti, Tan Dun, Daniel Catán – the list goes on and on; recent incursions into the lyric baritone repertoire; more than 100 live and studio-made recordings of complete operas and countless other recordings as well; seven Grammy awards and three Latin Grammy awards; honorary doctorates and governmental honors all over the world; nearly 500 performances as a conductor; the general directorship of two major American opera ensembles; the creation of Operalia, an international opera competition, and three young artist programs (Washington, Los Angeles and Valencia); humanitarian work on behalf of flood and earthquake victims in Mexico and the United States and for other causes… One can only marvel at the range, density and depth of the activities of this human dynamo, this many-sided musician and man of the theater, who shows no sign of slowing down as he approaches his eighth decade.
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