The Three Tenors in Rome: 7 July 1990
1990 · music
On the evening of 7 July 1990, on the night before the final of the football World Cup, six thousand people sat among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome and several hundred million more watched at home. Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti sang together for the first time, accompanied by two orchestras under Zubin Mehta. The programme moved from opera arias to Neapolitan songs and film melodies, and ended with a joint performance of Nessun dorma from Puccini's Turandot.
The concert had a private reason behind the public one. Carreras had been treated for leukaemia and had returned to singing after a long absence, and the evening was arranged partly to welcome him back and to support the foundation he had set up for research into the disease. The three men were friends and rivals, and the format allowed them to compete openly in front of an audience that understood exactly what they were doing.
The recording became the best selling classical album ever released. Nessun dorma had already reached a wide public through its use as the theme of the World Cup broadcasts, and after Rome it entered the general repertoire of things everybody knows. The three tenors performed together at later tournaments and toured for a decade.
Classical musicians argued about the evening for years, some seeing a vulgarisation and others the largest audience opera had ever reached. Both were true. For a generation of listeners with no connection to opera houses, the concert at Caracalla was the first time they heard what a trained voice can do, and record shops reported people arriving the next morning asking for Puccini by describing the tune.