The Three Tenors
The Three Tenors were an operatic singing trio, active between 1990 and 2003, and termed a supergroup (a title normally reserved for rock and pop groups)[1] consisting of Italian Luciano Pavarotti and Spaniards Plácido Domingo and José Carreras.
The trio began their collaboration with a performance at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy, on 7 July 1990, the eve of the 1990 FIFA World Cup final, watched by a global television audience of around 800 million.
[2] The image of three tenors in formal evening dress singing in a World Cup concert captivated the global audience.
They performed to a global television audience at three further World Cup Finals: 1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama.
[3][12] A filmed version of the concert was produced by Herbert Chappell and Gian Carlo Bertelli for Decca and became the highest-selling classical disc in history.
[20] In 1997 concerts followed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, at Skydome in Toronto, at Pro Player Stadium in Miami and at Camp Nou in Barcelona.
The tour was scheduled to end in Houston with a final concert which was eventually canceled due to very low ticket sales.
[21][22] In addition to their 1996–1997 world tour, The Three Tenors also performed two benefit concerts – one in Pavarotti's hometown Modena in the summer of 1997 and one in Domingo's home town Madrid in the following winter – in order to raise money for the rebuilding of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and for the Queen Sofia Foundation.
In 2000 the Three Tenors toured again performing live in San Jose, California, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., Cleveland and São Paulo.
[30] Finally in 2003 they performed in Bath at the Royal Crescent[31] and later in September the same year they gave their last Three Tenors' concert, which took place at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio.
[32] A Three Tenors reunion concert was scheduled to take place on 4 June 2005 at the Parque Fundidora in Monterrey, Mexico, but because of Pavarotti's health problems, he was replaced by Mexican pop singer Alejandro Fernández.
[38] For their initial appearance together in Rome in 1990, Carreras, Domingo, and Pavarotti agreed to accept relatively small flat fees for the recording rights to their concert, which they then donated to charity.
Their album unexpectedly reaped millions in profits for Decca Records, causing some resentment on the part of the tenors, who officially received no royalty payments.
As reported in the press, Domingo suspected that the record company paid Pavarotti on the side, in order to keep one of their top contracted artists content.
