Placido Domingo

Seasons of the Champion

Using his fourteen previous OPERA NEWS covers as an aide-mémoire, Plácido Domingo shares his thoughts about his first forty years at the Met. F. PAUL DRISCOLL listens in.

On September 28, 1968, twenty-seven-year-old PLÁCIDO DOMINGO made his first appearance on the Met stage, stepping in on short notice for an indisposed Franco Corelli as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur. It was the beginning of one of the truly great Metropolitan Opera careers — a historic relationship between an artist, a company and its audience. The current season's celebrations of the Domingo anniversary began this past September, with a gala dinner onstage at the Met, and continued in February, with Domingo's return to the role of Maurizio, in his first company performances of Adriana Lecouvreur since 1983. On March 15, the Met honors Domingo in the gala celebrating the company's 125th anniversary; the following month, the tenor will be the guest of honor at the Metropolitan Opera Guild's annual membership luncheon at the Waldorf=Astoria.

Music 45 Roles, 628 Performances. Why Stop?

Plácido Domingo cannot see himself retiring the way many opera stars do: by announcing a farewell tour and going from company to company, accepting tributes. “Rather,” he said, reflecting on his astonishingly long career during an interview in the tiny press office at the Metropolitan Opera, “I think it will be one evening, after a performance, to say, ‘That’s it.’ ”

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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Placido Domingo in “Adriana Lecouvreur” at the Met in February.

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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Plácido Domingo commands the stage in “The First Emperor” at the Met in 2006.

Mr. Domingo, 68, came close to doing that in January 2007 at the Met, at the end of the premiere run of Tan Dun’s opera “The First Emperor,” commissioned by the Met expressly for him.