But Carreras is also famous as someone who successfully fought a terrible disease and came back with flying colors. After enduring chemotherapy, radiation therapy and bone marrow transplants for leukemia during the mid-1980s, he was declared cured, and resumed his career before an astonished and delighted world. He now donates huge sums annually to therapy and research via his Jose Carreras International Leukemia Foundation.
The program will be the same for all four Taiwan concerts. Carreras will open with two numbers, followed by an orchestral interlude. He will then sing two more, followed again by another piece from the orchestra. Two more songs from Carreras will then conclude the first half. The second half will follow the same pattern - six Carreras items interspersed by two orchestral ones. In addition there will, presumably, be some encores.
Among Carreras' items will be such well-known favorites as Chitarra Romana (Roman guitar), Lucio Dalla's Caruso, and Gasteldon's Musica Proibita.
Among the orchestral items are the concluding Farandole from Bizet's Second L'Arlesienne Suite and the much-loved Intermezzo from Mascagni's opera Cavalleria Rusticana.
While it's true that Carreras will not be singing pure operatic items on these occasions, the more popular "light classical" items he will be presenting have two advantages. First, they are recognition of his popularity beyond the strictly classical field. And second, they accord appropriately with the vocal range of a man of Carreras' age.
These concerts will, above all else, be celebrations of a long career and a famous musical personality. Jose Carreras is now laden with honors, with opera houses named after him, and even a stamp issued (by Austria) to commemorate his debut. Skeptics may argue that there are today dozens of tenors with equally vigorous voices. But this is not the point. What's important is that the man you are witnessing is a great hero, both in art and life. The Three Tenors concerts may be past history, but Jose Carreras is a living legend.
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