The world has not been waiting for me to retell the career of Plácido Domingo, which has been told hundreds of times and can be found everywhere both on- and offline. It's just... and I know it's a tedious question, but still: Domingo's date of birth. It was a 21 January, and it was in Madrid – but in which year? For decades, it used to be 1934; even the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, where Domingo made a lot of recordings, gave that date (and gives it still in the remoter corners of their website). At some point, Domingo produced a birth certificate that states he was born in 1941 (some think it's a falsificate), and all of a sudden, the 1934 date was all the fault of Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, who had allegedly given that year in one of his writings. A third school on Domingo's birth believes it occurred in 1937, with no evidence that I'm aware of.

Now for some facts: In 1949 (whichever age he may have had), Domingo relocated to Mexico with his parents, two zarzuela singers (Plácido Domingo senior, baritone; Pepita Embil, soprano). He studied voice at the Mexico City conservatory with Igor Markevitch and Carlo Morelli (Renato Zanelli's brother). Domingo fancies to have started singing professionally in 1959, so at age 18 according to his own version. That would be unusual enough (particularly for someone who sang so extremely long – early debuts typically prompt early retirements). But in reality, Domingo's debut took place in 1957, in Mexico City, with his parents' company, in Gigantes y cabezudos (a zarzuela by Manuel Fernández Caballero) – in a baritone role. So... he would have had to be 16? Not totally impossible, particularly since the impresarios were his own parents; but still less than very probable.

In 1958, Domingo even sang a secondary basso role for his parents' troupe, in the Mexican opera Eréndira by Luis Mendoza López. But he sang, in a different company, also his first tenor role, jumping in for an ailing colleague as Javier in Luisa Fernanda – successfully enough that he sang the lead tenor role of Rafael in El gato montés (Spanish opera by Manuel Penella) the same year, while also still appearing as a bass-baritone (as Pascual in Marina, May 1959, Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara). Earlier that year, he had sung the tiny part of Harry in the very first Mexican production of My fair lady (premiered in Monterrey on 19 January, and then staged 185 times throughout Mexico). Officially, he would have achieved all that at age 16, 17 and 18.

When Domingo auditioned for the 1959/60 season at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, he hoped to be accepted as a baritone. Instead, the management had him sing "Amor ti vieta" from the sheet, and hired him as a comprimario tenor. This is where the part of his biography that he likes to tell sets in: 23 September 1959, Domingo's Palacio de Bellas Artes debut as Borsa in Rigoletto.

He sang comprimario parts for a few years, and since his fee was barely sufficient, he played the piano in a ballet company, wrote arrangements for a rock-and-roll band, acted a few minor parts on the straight theater stage (even in Pirandello and Chekhov plays), and appeared regularly on a light classical music program on Mexican television.

In 1961, Domingo sang his first operatic main role (Alfredo in Monterrey), and the first time abroad (Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor in Dallas, with Joan Sutherland and Ettore Bastianini). He also appeared in Fort Worth and Hartford, before going to Tel Aviv for two and a half years in late 1962. In Tel Aviv, he sang twelve roles, mostly in Hebrew!

In 1962, he already married the second time. The first marriage (1957) had produced a son (born 1958), and a quick divorce (1959). A father at 17 years old? Possible, no doubt. Uncommon, but possible. His second (long-term) wife was soprano Marta Ornelas (she soon gave up her career): a fellow voice student, born (undisputedly) 1935. Which would fit well with Domingo's original year of birth, 1934.

A date that seems to be further confirmed by the anecdote that while singing together in Il Guarany in Bonn in June 1994, US soprano Barbara Daniels chided Domingo in front of a few colleagues "Oh well, Plácido, haven't I been at your 60th birthday party in New York recently?" And off Domingo ran, in a rage, to his dressing room.

On the other hand again, if he was born in 1934, his mother would only have been 16. Someone in this story hurried into life... unless both dates of birth are wrong, Domingo's and his mother's. Domingo's father was born in 1907, his mother in 1918... or if not, she wouldn't certainly have been the first or last singer to make herself a few years younger.

Anyway, in 1966, after the end of his Tel Aviv contract, Domingo came to the New York City Opera and to the Met (open air performance, his first appearance at the Met proper followed in 1968). From then on, he sang at literally every likely place, and at most of the unlikely places, too; he made an astounding number of recordings; he also appeared as a conductor (arousing considerably less acclaim than as a singer), founded what turned out to become the world's most important singing competition (Operalia), managed the opera theaters of Washington and Los Angeles (much of the time simultaneously!), and all that well into the 2020s, albeit returning to baritone singing from 2007.

Apropos of nothing, the sexual harassment allegations voiced by a considerable number of female colleagues in 2019 had more than just a few truly bizarre aspects. Everybody with just the most peripheric interest in opera had known for decades that Domingo used to chase skirts (lots of them!) in a most uninhibited and direct way. All theater managements had always obliged to his erotic leanings, and nobody had ever dared criticizing him. In that light, it's comprehensible that Domingo was honestly shocked when being confronted – in several cases some 30 years late – with accusations that nobody had ever brought forward as long as he had been considered young and vigorous enough to be feared. And the theater managements who had, until just a few months earlier, closed both eyes at his (habitual) behavior, and now disinvited him, were really a bunch of hypocrites.

I've heard Domingo quite often on stage, and originally, he was the one of the Three Tenors that I cared less for. His voice was never really a tenor and never really a baritone, his sound was always muffled, his diction positively horrible in every language except Spanish, his top register inexistent, his musical temperament (or rather the opposite) and style totally incompatible with Italian and French opera... and he bored, both musically and as an actor. Then he began singing Wagner, and I began changing my mind to a certain extent. German speakers always sniffed at his German diction (and justly so, they just didn't realize that his French and Italian were miserable, too), but I found it pleasant to hear someone sing Wagner (as opposed to belting Wagner, with an excellent diction of course). His Lohengrin was interesting, his Parsifal was adequate but boring, and his Siegmund was seriously good. German music also accomodated Domingo's total lack of any squillo.

And admittedly, I took pleasure in several of his baritone efforts. He was a good Simon Boccanegra, Germont or Zurga (and no, not at all good as Rigoletto or, shudder to think, Nabucco). He also developed a kind of self-ironic demeanor that I would never have deemed the conceited 1980s tenor star capable of.

Reference: Repertoire of Plácido Domingo on Wikipedia (excellent!)

Reference: Domingo's website