José Plácido Domingo Embil (born January 21, 1941), better known as Plácido… Read Full Bio ↴José Plácido Domingo Embil (born January 21, 1941), better known as Plácido Domingo, is a world-famous Spanish operatic tenor. He is known for his versatile, strong voice that possesses a ringing and clear tone throughout its range. In addition to his singing roles, he has also taken on conducting opera performances as well as acting as the General Director of the Washington National Opera in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles Opera in California.

Plácido Domingo was born in Madrid, Spain, and moved to Mexico at age 8 with his family, who ran a zarzuela company. In Mexico City he studied music at the National Conservatory. He provided backup vocals for Los Black Jeans in 1958, a rock-and-roll band lead by César Costa. He learned piano and conducting, but made his stage debut in 1959 (May 12) at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara as Pascual in Marina. It was followed by Borsa in Rigoletto, Padre Confessor (Le dialogue des Carmelites) and others. In 1962 he joined the Israeli National Opera in Tel Aviv, where he spent two and a half years, singing 280 performances.

On September 19, 1985, the biggest earthquake in Mexico's history devastated the whole Mexican capital. Domingo's aunt, uncle, his nephew and his nephew’s young son were killed in the collapse of the Nuevo León apartment block in the Tlatelolco housing complex. Domingo himself labored to rescue survivors. During the next year, he did benefit concerts for the victims and released an album of one of the events.

In 1966, he sang the title role in the US premiere of Ginastera's Don Rodrigo at the New York City Opera, with much acclaim. He first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on September 28, 1968, in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, singing with Renata Tebaldi. (Since then, he has opened the season there 21 times, surpassing the previous record of Enrico Caruso by four.) He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1967, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1968, at both La Scala and San Francisco Opera in 1969, and at Covent Garden in 1971, and has now sung at practically every other important opera house and festival worldwide.

Perhaps the most versatile of all living tenors, Domingo has sung 92 roles onstage to date (and as many as 123 roles when also counting recorded roles), ranging from Mozart to Ginastera. His main repertoire however is Italian (Otello, Il Trovatore, Don Carlo), French (Faust, Werther, Don José in Carmen, Samson in Samson et Dalila), and German (Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Siegmund in Die Walküre). He continues to add more operas to his repertoire, such as recently Franco Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac at the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House in London.

With José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, he participated in The Three Tenors concert at the opening of the 1990 World Cup in Rome. The event was originally conceived to raise money for the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation and was later repeated a number of times, including at the three subsequent World Cup finals (1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama). Alone, Domingo again made an appearance at the final of the 2006 World Cup in Berlin.

In what has been called his 'final career move', Placido Domingo announced on January 25, 2007 that in 2009 he would switch ranges to baritone by taking on one of Verdi's most demanding baritone roles, as the Doge of Genoa, Simon Boccanegra, in the opera of the same name.

Adiós
Plácido Domingo Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

¡Adiós Granada
Granada mía!

Adiós Granada
Granada mía
Yo no volveré a verte
Más en la vía

Ay, me da pena
Vivir lejos de tu vega
Y del sitio en que reposa
El cuerpo de mi morena

¡Dobla campana
Campana dobla!

Dobla campana
Campana dobla
Que tu triste sonío
Me traen las olas
Que horas tan negras
En la cajita la veo
Y la nieve de sus labios
Aún en los míos la siento

¡Dobla, dobla campana!

Overall Meaning

The song Adiós by Plácido Domingo is about the singer saying goodbye to the city of Granada, a place that holds a special significance for him as it was the location where his loved one's body is laid to rest. The singer expresses his sadness at having to leave such a beautiful place which will hold a special place in his heart forever. He talks about the pain of living far away from the verdant landscape and the resting place of his loved one, who is referred to as "mi morena" or "my brunette". The song has an air of melancholy, and the singer's voice conveys the sense of longing that he feels as he prepares to leave Granada.

The chorus of "Dobla campana, campana dobla" adds to the somber mood of the song, as the bell tolls in the distance, a reminder of the passing of time and the inevitability of death. The repetition of the phrase emphasizes the urgency of the situation and highlights the singer's desire to mourn his loss, which is made even more poignant by the fact that he is far away from his beloved's resting place. Overall, the song is a heart-wrenching tribute to a place and a person that the singer will always hold dear.

Line by Line Meaning

Adiós Granada
Farewell Granada, my beloved city

Granada mía
My Granada, the city that holds a special place in my heart

Adiós Granada
Goodbye Granada, I must bid you farewell

Granada mía
My Granada, I'll miss you dearly

Yo no volveré a verte
I won't see you again

Más en la vía
On my journey, I won't come across your beautiful streets

Ay, me da pena
Oh, it saddens me

Vivir lejos de tu vega
To live far away from your meadow

Y del sitio en que reposa
And from the place where my beloved rests

El cuerpo de mi morena
The body of my dark-skinned beauty

¡Dobla campana
Ring the bell