Interview with Plácido Domingo.

- You visit our country often. Do you like the Hungarians so much?

-  Yes. I like Hungarian composers, Liszt, Bartók, Dohnányi, Kodály. Last year we organised the Operalia in Pécs. And I worked with Gábor Carelli at the New York Metropolitan Opera for years. But I also like Hungarian sportsmen, especially the football players. And not to mention Hungarian cuisine!

- You have sung in Hungarian. Do you remember Bánk bán?

- Of course. "Hazam, hazam, te mindenem [My homeland, my homeland, you are all to me]", tarirarara rirarara ...how does it go on? The Hungarian language is terribly difficult, we were just saying in Parlament Café how the only languages it is related to are Finnish and Estonian. But I didn't sing the whole opera, just the grand aria.

- Just before Christmas at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna you celebrated your having performed 3,500 times. You played Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize winner Chilean poet in Daniel Catán's opera titled The Postman. How did you know so precisely how many times you had performed?

- I decided at the premiere of La Traviata in New York - at that time I had performed 700 times - that after every one hundred performances we would organise a party. Since then we have been counting. This time in Vienna my colleagues wrote "Opera world champion" on the cake.

- Vienna is a city where you have broken the most records. If memory serves, you were given ninety-five encores at the premiere of La bohéme.

- The enthusiasm of the audiences in Vienna is amazing. If they like a performance, they are not willing to go home.

- Apparently you were applauded for one and a half hours.

- I don't know if it was really one and a half hours, but it was at least one hour of applause. In the meantime we said our farewells several times and changed clothes. The trouble is that since then every time I perform in Vienna they want to break the record so now when we are approaching the fiftieth bow, we let down the theatre curtains, bid farewell to the audience, and make our escape. Who could keep it up for longer than that?  

- Your voice hasn't changed in fifty years. What's your secret?

- Discipline and knowing yourself.

- Some years ago you declared that at the age of seventy you would definitely give up singing. You didn't mean it, did you?

- I'll turn seventy in two weeks but it didn't even occur to me to retire. I feel that I'm in my prime. But these days I have been thinking about things a lot. For me the voice is a mystery. As long as I have my voice, the theatres are full, and the critics praise me, I will continue. Of course if one day my voice tells me "Stop Plácido, that's enough!" it would be a different situation. But I'll continue until then. Especially if someone were to write an opera about Fidel Castro or Jacques Chirac and commissioned me with the leading roles. I wouldn't say no.

- So does your motto still apply: "If I stop, I'll rust"?

- For me the stage is life itself. I need it. Like I do air. I have been on the stage or learning a role for the stage since I was eighteen; I haven't stopped for 52 years.

- Which is the more difficult: conducting or singing?

- Conducting is a responsibility. It requires maximum concentration. You need to put an incredible amount of spiritual and physical energy into it. But singing is still more difficult.

- Does it help in your conducting that you started off as a singer?

- Definitely. My movements are rooted in my stage acting. It is very important what my body and face express: joy or sadness. The whole orchestra has to feel this. Karajan was aware of this. He conducted even though he was suffering from arthritis in his left hand. He often did not have the strength to stand. But body language was enough, even if it was just a flash: the orchestra knew what to play.

- Up to the recent past you had been the director of two American opera houses, i.e. in Washington and Los Angeles. A couple of months ago - to the surprise of many people - you resigned from your post as general-director of the Washington opera house. Why?   

- I directed the Washington opera for fifteen years. That's a very long time. Even in politics. I don't know of any heads of state who led a country for so long. Only dictators. I think after such a long time an opera house has enough of the same director, and it is a long enough time for a director to stay with the same troupe.  

-Last year you enjoyed one of your greatest successes with Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. And to many people's amazement you made your debut there as a baritone.

- I wanted to be a baritone at the beginning of my career. At the age of eighteen, when I went for my audition for the Mexican opera house, I chose a baritone role. They said my voice was wonderful but that I would be a tenor. Ever since I have always wanted to sing Boccanegra because this is Verdi's King Lear. Moreover, I think the pirate character rather requires a tenor tessitura. So I have always imagined that I would complete my career with Boccanegra.   

- Is this character so important?

- But of course! The lives of opera characters are my life too. I can be Tristan or Orestes, Faust and Cyrano all at the same time, a poet and a pimp. An opera singer develops along with his roles.

- Have opera performances changed a lot in the last fifty years?

- They have changed drastically. These days everyone wants to be avant-garde. They try to shock the audience, sometimes by taking a minimalist approach and at other times by using expensive technologies. What would Verdi say if he saw Rigoletto being played on the planet of the apes? Or what would Mozart think of his work often used as mere "raw material" for the most absurd interpretations?

- Many people say that as a genre opera is obsolete, and that audiences need "new thrills".

- In the past audiences need for novelty was satisfied with new works. Money was not spent on the untested ideas of directors but on composers and new works. This ensured continuity from Monteverdi to Stravinski. Don't get me wrong, I have no objection to inventive directors dusting down the masterpieces of classical operas, on condition that they do so with taste and talent. For example, the overture of Strauss' Ariadne on Naxos was played in the villa of a Hollywood film producer in William Friedkin's Los Angeles adaptation. It enjoyed resounding success. Numerous works are shown by contemporary composers in Washington. William Bolcom composed a fantastic opera from Arthur Miller's drama titled A View from the Bridge, and there is Daniel Catán's The Postman, which I mentioned earlier. It is our task to work for the audience, and we have to reach out to young people too.

- It's now fashionable in Hungary to ask prose directors to direct operas. Don't you think that it's dangerous for people with no knowledge of operas to direct operas?

- Directing is a question of talent. I myself have commissioned theatre directors. In Los Angeles Woody Allen directed a Puccini opera, and the result was a fantastic performance. At the same time opera is teamwork. We can't afford for the director to make a mess of the performance, to offend the composer or look down on the audience. I like modern performances and new ideas, but opera must be respected. You always have to find harmony.  

- Your propensity for modern music is obviously enhanced by your son being a composer. Have you sung any of his works?

- But of course! My son, Pláci, put the poetry of John Paul II to music. This record is one of the most important works of my life. Not only because I am a Catholic but also because I regard Pope John Paul II as one of the greatest figures of the 20^th century, who devoted his entire life to humanity and to God.  

- You have done a lot to make opera popular. Clearly this was one of your aims when you launched the "three tenors" performances with Pavarotti and José Carreras.

- At the beginning we were happy enough that José began singing again (after his illness - ed.). The huge success it enjoyed with the audience was surprising. Of course it was worth it financially too. After that, we realised that we had become catalysts to a process: it attracted people to the opera who had previously never stepped foot in an opera house in their lives.  

- Everybody listens to you but what kind of music do you listen to?

- I am a lucky guy: my profession is my hobby. I work so much that I have no time for anything. If I do have time, I mainly listen to symphonic orchestras. But I'm also interested in light music. For example, we put out a very successful album with John Denver. The crossover genre is not unfamiliar to me either. And I love Latin American music. 

- And Latin football, right? In summer, half the world saw you celebrating with the world cup winning Spanish team in the company of the heir to the Spanish throne. Didn't you feel sorry for the Mexican team since they had to leave the championship so early on?

- If you mean that I grew up in Mexico, learned to sing there, that my mother was Mexican and it was there that my parents founded the zarzuela troupe - which was a travelling operetta group, where I also went on stage - then I would say that my feelings were divided right down the middle since even today I profess myself to be half Mexican, and we spend Christmas in our house in Acapulco. However, since I sang the Mundial at the opening of the 1982 Spanish world cup I have stuck by the Spanish team through thick and thin. At the recent final I shouted so loudly that my wife told me: "Don't shout Plácido or you'll lose your voice!"

- Cancerous tumours were found in your system last year. How did this affect you?

- I was lucky, since five weeks after the operation I was working again. But I would be lying if I said that the illness did not affect me deeply. Everyone thinks they are an exception, but this isn't true. I was shocked to realise that we can be here one day and gone the next. Life is a wonderful thing. And it's a wonderful thing to see my grandchildren as they shoot up. 

- 16 critics from the BBC Music Magazine selected you as "the greatest tenor of all time". Do you agree with their decision?

- No, no I don't agree with it! It was a shocking surprise for me. I think there are better tenors than me. But if this was their decision, then I am proud.

- Who would you have selected?

- Caruso of course.

- What does success mean to you?

- Losing myself. But then again, I don't even know. Those most beautiful moments when I can give myself over to the audience. When I'm not thinking and can feel that people in the audience are not thinking either. Everybody surrenders themselves to the music and differences disappear. Music is a great equaliser. Yes, I believe that the most satisfying thing in life is if I can give to others. I believe the greatest success is if you can give peace to others.

- "It's possible to live without music but it's not worth it!" Zoltán Kodály said this. Did you recognise the quote?

- No. I did not, but it is utterly true. I feel the same way exactly.

Bank bán in America

Attempts have been made over several decades to present Ferenc Erkel's Bánk bán in the United States, so far without success, since Erkel's work is little known beyond Hungary. Plácido Domingo and Megakoncert have realised numerous co-productions in recent years and they have also continuously kept "alive" the Bánk bán production. Then, last autumn the management of the Los Angeles opera house led by the tenor star voted for the opera to be included in the 2011-2012 season  - with the financial support of the Hungarian government - in a show conducted by Domingo.  

Although there are only two performances planned, it has not yet been decided whether this will be a full opera or a concert like production. It is hoped that the performances will contribute to Erkel's recognition abroad. American audiences have already seen Bartók's opera titled Bluebeard's Castle in 2002 in the Los Angeles opera house and in the Washington opera house in the 2006-2007 season - at which times Plácido Domingo was the general-director at both institutions.